All Dog Lives Matter

 Rebecca was not always an animal person.  

In fact, for the first 35 years of her life, animals and herself had played a virtual chess game with no exchange of pieces. If dog moves this way, then I'll move that way, and each created a defensive posturing that allowed the other to live in peace.   

But as her children aged, and as the pandemic of 2020 raged, she felt a bond with her family's dog that she'd never felt before. Maybe being holed up inside the house for long periods of time helped her understand her pet's existence. She had read the feminist novels of the late twentieth century like The Awakening, and laughed at the horrible symbology of the trapped "bird." Or clipped wings. Or whatever. Sure, women once had it much worse. Yes, many were trapped in bad marriages, and treated like housepets by their smug husbands. But ultimately, maybe even sadly, she liked love stories like Pride and Prejudice much more. Even with its antiquated views on marrying well for financial stability. Jane Austen wrote about dogs, but they were always owned by the Darcys and the Willoughbys of her novels. Hunting dogs. Which is maybe why the idea of a dog as "Man's Best Friend" came about. 

But the longer her wings were clipped inside her house; her stupid dirty house, (why hadn't the boy's done the dishes last night like they said they would!), the more she felt a kinship with Muttley. Muttley prefered the dirty house. There were more objects to shake wildly, more plates to lick, more garbage to tear apart for the last calorie of ketchup residue; he made her housework more laborious. Yet he was dependent on the family. And as Rebecca was trapped in a household of men, she, of course, was the most responsible, and the one most often feeding, bathing, and now walking Muttley.  Muttley was exactly as his name implied. Bigger than average. Probably some lab, maybe some retriever, maybe some Blue Heeler, whatever he was, he wasn't a looker, but he was sweet and harmless.   

The first few walks, like every other obligation in Rebecca's life, felt like another chore. And with everyone now trapped in the house, working from home, schooling from home, everyone afraid of a microscopic virus, escaping to the outside started to feel like a reprieve.  

To Muttley, the idea of a walk was pure euphoria. Muttley believed in the green leash, the orgiastic future outside that day by day retreats before him. The perfect telephone pole might have eluded him yesterday, but it doesn't matter, today he can walk much farther, stretch his leg out wider, pee much longer, and one fine morning, he may smell the secrets of the universe.  

Muttley's excitement was contagious. And eventually Rebecca started to look forward to the walks. She noticed houses she hadn't seen before, neighbors she hadn't greeted before, watched the sun rise or set against the hilly backdrop of her neighborhood. She appreciated the air. The smells, and the simple companionship of Muttley. Sometimes one of the boys, or her husband would join her on these daily walks and she wondered how they had gone so many years without this simple pastime.  

Jane Austen's heroines would've known the joys of long walks. Of course, Jane Austen wrote about middle class women clinging to some kind of opulent hope. Good marriages allowed them to avoid the dangers of the industrial revolution. Most historical women would've lived more like Oliver Twist than any of the Bennett sisters. It was probably this romanticism of gender roles that Rebecca most enjoyed. How nice would it be to simply play the piano nicely, recite some random poetry, and direct the house servants to throw a lavish party. But what percentage of historical women, while denied a working career, were also free of the slavery of pre-modern housework? How long did washing the clothes take? Fetching the water, heating the water, washing the kids? Every single task she dreaded today, must've taken 10 to 45 minutes longer in 1800.  

It was that class disparity she was thinking about, when she rounded the corner and heard a commotion.  Muttley had heard it early and expressed that dog-centric emotion of whining and tugging on the leash. Fear, apprehension, and curiosity.  

She heard the barking before she saw the figures. Then she heard the shouting.  

"Get him off my lawn!"

"He's not even on your lawn, he's on the sidewalk!" 

"Well, he peed on my flowers, I watched you let him do it!" 

Rebecca now cold see a black man, a black person, an African American?, she wasn't sure what they preferred to be called.  She saw him holding a leash, taut, the rest of the dog was obstructed by a neighboring shrub that had pushed past the curb. Come on people, control your shrubbery! she thought.  

It must be a massive dog. A pit-bull or Rottweiler. So much acidic urine could maybe kill her flowers, but still, dogs are dogs...

Ten steps more and she was past the obstructing bush, and she could see some form of terrier...a Jack Russell terrier, most likely, his curious face looked at her as she entered the scene. He did not bark, instead he ignored her entrance and repositioned himself defensively against the agitated homeowner. 

"I'm sorry he sprayed your flowers, ma'am...if you'd like, I'll spray them off with your hose. He meant no harm." 

"You will not touch my hose!" 

Other neighbors now watched from their front lawns.

"Well, I don't know what else to do, other than apologize, ma'am." 

"Don't you call me ma'am. I'm not that much older than you. I don't need your type belittling me." 

"Excuse me, "my type?," I hope you are referring to me being a pet-owner." 

"You know what I mean. Walking down this street everyday like its normal. Letting your dog urinate in my yard...it's a shame they let you..." 

Rebecca couldn't stand it anymore; "Hey, lady, cool it. Okay? We're all neighbors here. He apologized. It isn't a big deal. Don't make this personal." 

"Well, we aren't all n***** lovers in this neighborhood." 

The black man scoffed, "Well, there we have it folks, a klansmember right here?!" He swirled his arms around, one clearly hampered by the leash, but he didn't seem too surprised, just disappointed. 

"I ain't no klan member. My step-daughter married a black man. But he doesn't let..." 

Rebecca interjected again. "Lady, why don't you just shut the f*** up right now. We don't need your antebellum attitude right now." 

"You shut up, you dumb bitch, n***** lover." 

Rebecca was now incensed.  Her husband would've ripped her mailbox out of the ground and thrown it through her car windshield. But men, men... She realized her grip on the leash was shaking.  Muttley was growling, just audible to her, and showing just a small segment of teeth.  Muttley was a dumb dog, in the nicest sense of the word. He let people walk inside their house and then jumped on their laps the minute they sat down. He ran away from cats in the backyard, and whimpered once at a squirrel who was not afraid of him.  

"Walking away," the black man said as he twirled his free arm again. Normally Rebecca had only seen this gesture from gay men, but this man did it with such precision and force, it was masculine to the core. It was a beautiful simple protest.  

"Don't walk away," Rebecca said, "this women owes you an apology." 

The man turned around and looked right at her. His Jack Russell did, too, as if in solidarity to his master. "Thanks, but, you don't know. You don't know." 

"I know this is my neighborhood, and this is 2020, and it isn't right." 

"I thank you for being an advocate, or ally, or whatever the hell it is that whitefolks are calling this "wokeness," but this is my everyday.  It's not everyday, or month. But I'm used to it. I'll continue to walk this route, I'll consider letting my dog urinate on her flowers, but I will pull him back because I don't need this in my life. I don't want this in my life. It's better if I just pretend this unwelcomeness doesn't exist in my neighborhood."  

"But you are welcome..." 

"No you aren't," the lady yelled, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation from 40' away.

Some of the neighbors started to murmur, one began recording on her cell phone, one started calling the police. Rebecca realized she might be apart of one of those racial-viral videos. 

Take this, racism!

Rebecca raised her voice, "You know what lady..." 

But before an explosion of expletives could leave her mouth, she looked down at Muttley, who had pulled himself as far from his leash as he could, and was squatting down right next to the lady's mailbox. He looked up at Rebecca, smiling-grimacing, as the largest shit he had ever taken, plopped down next to the lady's mailbox.  

"Oh, hell no," The lady yelled, as the neighborhood exploded in applause.  

Muttley, now an agent provocateur, basked in his attention. He kicked some mulch backwards onto his victory pile.  

Rebecca tried to hold back a smile, "Good boy," she said just loud enough for the neighbor to hear.  

"You're cleaning that up, this is my property." 

Rebecca took two steps away 

"You better! It's common courtesy. What's happened to civility around here?"

The black man answered, "Don't shit where you eat, ma'am." the neighbors, clearly sick of this woman, laughed and applauded again. Someone even hooted. It was a white person hoot, so it was awkward. 

Rebecca and the man walked away, separated by just enough distance that the pandemic had made normal.  Their dogs did not even sniff each other.  

They got to the fork in the road. The man said, "This is where I turn." 

Rebecca said, "Yeah, I live that way..." 

"Well, maybe..."

Rebecca interrupted, "I didn't get your name? Mine's Rebecca."

"It's Ray, the dog is Fraiser." 

Did black people watch Fraiser?, she mentally slapped herself for thinking it...

"I have no idea how long you've lived here, but welcome to the neighborhood, Ray." 

"Thanks for welcoming me," Ray replied, almost as if the other thing hadn't even happened.  

They exchanged goodbye pleasantries, almost like two strangers meeting on a path in a Jane Austen book, except of course, that black people didn't exist on those paths or pages. 

"That's some N**** loving dog, you got, Rebecca," he joked. 

"Oh don't tell him that, he will think it gives him a free pass to say that word around the house. His name is Muttley." she tried to be funny.

"Well, all mutts matter," he joked with a sly smile. 

"Yes they do." she replied.  

She walked towards her home. Unafraid of the unknown. Even in a pandemic, good people exist. And dogs will judge the rest.  

Finding Balance in Armageddon

James sat in his corner cubical, wiped the sweat from his brow, and picked up the next paper from the stack labeled, "Not Approved."  The orange hue from the fires outside made it seem like sunset, but the clock clearly stated 2:30.

He heard keys fumbling in the front lock, and then the door flung open.  Tom Trudeau, his district manager, blew past him, nearly sprinting.  James turned in his swivel chair and watched as Tom flung a Motivational poster off the wall in his glassed office.  Tom spun some dials on a safe that the rest of the office personal assumed was there, but had never seen, and pulled the contents into a small backpack.

James looked around the office to see if anyone else was witnessing this crime, but he had forgot. They all ran out screaming when the bombs landed.

Tom hurriedly zipped the bag up and then noticed James.

"James, what the hell are you still doing here?"

"It's only 2:30 in the afternoon? And I have hours of revised applications to go through."

"What? You dumbshit! The world is on fire, and you want to give some rejects a closer look?" "Newsflash, nothing matters anymore. We've been attacked. I bet 75% of the city is gone.  You need to call your family, see if everyone is okay.  This building is probably going up in flames in a matter of moments! There might be more bombs!"

"I don't have any family; at least not anywhere near here."

"Well, do whatever it is you robotic weirdos do...I would advise you to find some shelter or something...This is only gunna get worse!"

"I have so much work to do, though.  God, I hate disasters, they always upset the balance..."

"The balance?  What are you talking about? Nobody gives a crap about any account reviews.  I randomly choose 1 of the 7 accounts you send back, and approve it. I don't even look at your revisions. Okay?  This job? Your job? It's a joke."

"This job is not a joke. I get people approved for loans whom wouldn't normally qualify.  All these memos and quotas we have to meet, you've established them..."

"Yeah, and now I'm outta here." Trudeau pressed a Post-it note with the words "Today's Memos" onto Johnson's forehead.

"Why are you taking office equipment and that cash, " Johnson replied, looking at the now-full backpack. "That money was intended for Loancorp?  I don't even need to consult the employee code of conduct to know that what you are doing is against corporate policy."

"Policy? You are some kind of weirdo homeschooled kid aren't you?  Look, I don't have time to talk legalities...it's every person for himself!"

"Every person for himself?  Is that our new policy?"

"What? Yeah, sure, if it'll help you survive!"

Tom Trudeau, district manager looked in disbelief as James Johnson, senior account reviewer, and the office joke's fist made contact with his chin.

It knocked Tom clean out.

James Johnson picked up the backpack. "Thanks Tom, I'll be taking the rest of the day off." The new corporate policy didn't make much sense, but it was the first benefit Johnson had received in his long career with Loancorp.

Johnson walked outside into the balmy heat and removed another layer of clothing. The world really was changing quickly, James thought.  "Watch, Learn, Adapt, Master; repeat," he thought to himself. Mom was right, he could make it in this world.

He walked into the neighboring Best Buy looking for something interesting to purchase, but realized he was alone.

Like a scurrying rat, one last Geek Squad employee in a blue shirt shot out from the stockroom.  His hands full, like Tom, probably pilfering, only in this case, the best gaming computer the store sold.

James tracked him down, "Hi, I was wondering who could help me with some large purchases?"

"Are you kidding, dude? The employees left hours ago...the store's all yours!" and tossed him some keys.

Wow, James thought, this calamity is really paying dividends. 

He had never thought of owning an electronics store...but it sure beat living in his 600 square foot apartment.

After a few hours of remodeling, James had furnished himself a large corner office. He even set up a brand new side-by-side fridge, a Keurig espresso coffee maker, and top of the line microwave, giving himself an office kitchen.  The rearranging had really worked up a sweat. Someone must've set the thermostat to 80 degrees he thought.

It's foolish mistakes like that, that get upstart companies rejected loans. One has to be savvy with the bottom line.

Johnson started work on a business proposal: JJ's BB EE.  James Johnson's Best Buy Electronics Experience. His own creative mind gave him a chill down the spine. The heebeegeebees.

He walked to the front window, as the sound of sirens blared everywhere, and locked the doors for the night. The orange glow remained, but a more beautiful pink hue fought the darkening sky. It reminded him of a painting in a hotel room. A room with a view.  More like a warehouse with a view.

At the edge of his parking lot, he saw a car crash into a telephone pole. The pole fell to the ground, sparks flying everywhere. A truck pulled up behind the crashed car and forced the injured woman from the car into the truck. She appeared to be yelling protests.

Johnson got the heebeegeebees again.  "The world is going to hell...Thank God I got this great investment."

He flicked the main lights off at the electrical panel and walked back to his corner office, now lit by just a small lamp.  He looked at his business proposal, and with all pride of a mother on graduation day, stamped the file: APPROVED.

Watch, Learn, Adapt, Master; Repeat...he wrote on a post-it note...then added, and become your own boss.  

And before he could pull the string on the lamp, it went out on its own. "Must be time for bed, Johnson thought as he leaned back in his swivel leather chair. He disrobed down to his undershirt and boxers, but still felt the heat of the building.

Tomorrow I've got to find the thermostat and turn the heat down...and get some curtains to block out these sunsets, then I'll finally have balance.  He leaned back once again in his chair, smiled, and slept like the dead. 

Metallic Food, Killing Rats, and Bad Art Teachers: A Grief Story

I'm getting better at grieving...

If that's a thing. A trait to be desired? I don't know. Is it better to be a bubbling, snotty, mess, or the person who compartmentalizes things and then hears Radiohead on the way home and nearly has to pull over and cry? I don't know.

I just know what to expect. I know I'll laugh again, and cry again, and be hit with weird moments of everything in between, because this isn't new. I've done this before. Death has been conquered before, and I'll get past this, too. But grief is odd...

Losing my grandma was the third death in less than a month. They say death comes in three's, and I didn't want it to be true. I lost my dog of 15 years on the last day of 2019, and then two days later my daughter's hamster died just moments before we left for a mini-trip to the coast.  Hamsters don't count, I know.  They're rodents. But looking at my daughter when she discovered that her hamster died, I knew right then that it counted. Pain in the eyes of your children, counts. I dug another, much shallower grave in the backyard. Then we said a prayer, and got in the car to go on vacation. Yippee!

I told myself that we were done with death because there was a third death. Kind of. My other dog, Gatsby, did not like us burying his brother Indiana; he sniffed the box, he nudged the carcass of his brother, and then when we lowered the dog into the ground, Gatsby barked at us and jump-lunged at us inside the netting of our enclosed trampoline (yes, our dog jumps up and inside the trampoline enclosure and hangs out there; he's weird). The netting propelled him backward, almost violently. It was odd. He jumped at us in anger, and barked at us in anger. Something he'd never done. He then went to the tamped-down dirt and sniffed, whined, and looked up at us. Why? Grief is weird.

Goodbye, Ole' Indiana, you were a good pup.

Gatsby, a day later, established himself as head-of-house dog. He caught a rat. We don't have a rat problem. I've never seen one, never heard one, never had any food ripped open, no droppings. We don't have rats. But when I heard Gatsby violently shaking something in the hallway, I had to go check it out. He violently rips apart every toy we give him. But he does it right in front of us, as if we should be proud. He pulls the fluff out and sets the precious polyester in our lap. He goes after the squeaker like that cult leader from Temple of Doom goes after beating hearts.  "Good dog," he expects. We don't say that...our response is more like, "Gatsby...we just got you that! Bad!" So when I heard the commotion in the hall I was curious. When I got to the hallway, I was really mad. He got the other daughter's hamster! (technically, this was before the first hamster death). On the ground was my daughter's hamster, tail bloody, clearly damaged from the violent shaking that Gatsby had inflicted.

"Nadia! quick, get in here...Gatsby got your hamster!" I yelled as I held back Gatsby from finishing off the poor hamster.

Nadia runs into the hall. "Dad, that's not my hamster."

My wife right behind her, voice trembling, "Yeah, Chris, that's not her hamster! Hamster's don't have tails. That's a rat!"

Still disbelieving (I'm such a Thomas), I looked into my daughter's room and saw her dark-brown "rat-looking" hamster sleeping comfortably.

I agree on the star rating.  

What the hell. A rat? In my house? I ran to get the girl's pink BB gun. I shot the bastard. Nobody grieved for the tail-tattered, BB riddled carcass of the rat. I did what men do. We eliminate problems. I had to clean the blood off the floor and dispose of the rat. In the trashcan, because this was not a family pet. Rodents don't count.

So the next day when Lily's hamster died, I later thought...oh yeah, my dog, the rat, and the hamster...that's three. Obviously one hurt badly, one hurt a little, and one not at all...and we survived.

But rodents don't count.

Instead, the third will be the toughest of them all. Grandma.

This was not totally unexpected. She was 96. We lost Grandpa Bill less than two years ago. The family thought maybe they'd both make it to 100 as they were both spritely and healthy.  Bill was a Pearl Harbor survivor. How cool would it be to have 100-year-old Pearl Harbor surviving couple. They'd probably make the national news. (As if anyone watches NBC nightly news anymore).  I know that's selfish and stupid, but it also made me proud of who they were. Survivors.

My grandparents 70th anniversary

If I was a normal person, I'd probably use this paragraph to describe the unbelievable character of Pat Sharrar, my grandma. A devout Catholic, person of high moral character, and mother to seven kids.  She was a special person. I didn't know her very well. I knew her, but, she was guarded in that WWII generation way. She didn't reveal a ton about herself. She made the best wheat bread I've ever tasted, could play a nasty round of Speed (cards) or Scrabble...but I didn't really know her.  I loved her, yes, but there was something I never unravelled about her. My aunts and uncle obviously knew her deeper. As did many of my cousins. My sister said, "She was so much more dimensional that she comes across," and while I knew that about her, I never got to see it.

In a way, I'm jealous of the deep bond many of my cousins and siblings shared with Pat. But, then again, everybody bonds differently with different people. I know she loved me, and she knew I loved her, and even if we didn't have some "otherworldly" connection that some grandkids and grandparents have, I'm not bitter or guilt-riddled. Death is no time for a pity party.

Instead, as the long, boring ride home on the worst stretch of I-5, after seeing her the night before she passed (her spirit already gone) but now knowing she was gone, I tried to grieve. Or rather, grief tried to find me. Stupid Radiohead songs. Radiohead was one of those bands that saturated my one major depression. I love Radiohead, but their ethereal sounds can put me in a bad place if I allow them.  People don't realize the power of music. Music, probably more than any other art, is a doorway to emotions...

Anyway, while the beginning of grief boiled to the surface, something odd happened. I remembered my 7th grade teacher Mr. Wood.

Mr. Wood was an Art teacher at a school in Northern Washington.  He taught middle school for half the day and then drove to the high school to teach in the afternoon. My brother, a sophomore when I was a 7th grader, also had Mr. Wood.

Mr. Wood lost his father and his dog in the same year.

I'm not sure if these events led to Mr. Wood being an ineffective art teacher, but Mr. Woods could not control a classroom. And the cruelty of our generation gave no compassion to Mr. Wood. They thrived on his pain. They besieged Mr. Wood with insults and taunts, and when Mr. Wood would assign a new project, some kid would blurt out, "How's your dad, Mr. Wood?"

Mr. Wood would then slink away, into his office, and cry. 

We (and I say "We" because I never stopped this torment...I sometimes laughed, and enjoyed the freedom of never having to turn in assignments or care about my projects in art class) were purposely cruel to Mr. Wood for our advantage. One day a kid swore while sharpening his pencil...Mr. Wood approached him and was going to write him a referral; but the kid apologized and said, "Sorry, my dog died yesterday and it's really affecting me."

Damien, you little devil, you...

Mr. Wood tried to console the kid, with tears in his eye. The student shot us a glance and smiled like Damien in the last scene of The Omen. Mr. Woods disappeared for the rest of the period. We won again. My brother told me the same stories happened at the high school. Everyone tormented Mr. Wood. For years. And the poor man was trying to grieve.

It is disgusting. It was then, at this memory, that I cried. Partially for grandma, but partially because I helped mock a man who lost his world.

And how similar, I am, to that man now. I've lost my dog and my grandma in the same month. Maybe not the same scale, and yes, there are grievable scales to death. 16 is worse than 96...tragedies, unexpected, those who leave many behind...those hurt more. Regardless, this hurts. Grief of any kind, hurts. Maybe even for rodents. But right now I'm hurting for Mr. Woods. A man I haven't seen in over 25 years.

The Bible says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

I'll get past this. My mom, bless her loving soul, will get past this. My cousins and family will all survive this. My grandma was 96 and well loved, and her family is close and will console each other. Grief, of course, will catch us all by surprise weeks, months and even years from now, but we will find joy again.

But what about the thousands millions of Mr. Woods' out there? Who mourns with them? Who comforts them?

I'm sorry Mr. Woods. You deserved more. I know I was a shit 7th grader, but I knew better.

Right now I'm mourning for you. I hope you found comfort.

I'm sorry it took the death of my grandma to really mean it. Grief is weird. 

Btw, if you're wondering what stage of grief I'm experiencing, I'm in the stage where food tastes like it has metal in it. I know this stage will fade. Food will once again taste like it doesn't have metal in it. I'll be okay. 



More stories of terrible lessons learned in Mr. Wood's class: https://plumbeddown.blogspot.com/2012/08/if-you-could-change-events-of-one-day.html#.XiaI7FNKglI

Stolen Vigilance

The night’s watch, he called it. Better pop culture reference than The Watchtower, he thought. It was, in fact, neither a Game or Thrones moment, or a Jehovah’s Witness magazine, but insomnia.

Relentlessness.

No matter how hard he worked, or played, or talked, or screwed, or cried or screamed in the day, when night came it was always about what-ifs. Like all insomniacs, he wondered how he could’ve done it better or worse, or how the next day brought about new dilemmas, challenges, and anxieties, and it all left him paralyzed. Sleepless. And yet dreaming.

He rose, and walked through the shadows, memorized steps that led him to the fridge. He opened it and drank straight from the orange juice container. His body wasn’t balanced, yet. He grabbed the fridge door and the pickle jar with the other.  Each bite of pickle sounded like a sonic boom, but only to him. No need to worry, not even the old family dog now woke to check on these sounds.  His girls, his wife, they wouldn’t wake now, for this, or even if he turned the TV to full blast and watched inappropriate infomercials all night long. He was alone. The acids seemed to balance him. He closed the fridge, walked to his comfy chair and slopped down.

He wasn’t always alone. He wasn’t always a night’s watchman. He became one out of some biological need to protect the family. When something went bump in the night, he was there to make sure it was benign. The few carcinogens were just mice, or rowdy neighbors, or wind from a window left open knocking down a school project.

To counteract this newfound anxiety, he changed his habits. Sam grew up in a small country town.  Nobody locked their doors, and people hid the keys to the car under the floor mats. But these suburbs were different than that small town.  Maybe it was the close proximity of houses and yet completely foreign concept of neighbors, or the less likelihood of firearms for protection, but he felt differently now.  Now he locked the doors, and checked the windows.  He sometimes looked in on his sleeping angels and wanted that peace, for them, for himself, forever. And this feeling of peace wanting caused him anxiety. 

He could count the number of times he had forgotten to close those windows or lock the deadbolt, or failed to secure something of value in its proper place.  Tonight just happened to be one of those nights. 

The thief did not case the home. He was simply taking advantage of the cloud covered night. He knew that many suburbanites stayed up late, partying, parenting, drinking...but these behaviors were predictable. Almost nobody stirred at 3 am except the new mother.  But new moms were usually zombies and easily avoidable. 

The thief parked his car near the local park. The car was neither new or old. It was indistinguishable in that mid-aughts sedan kind of way.  His rule was never venture further than a half mile away from this base. It wasn't registered to him, but it would eventually lead back to him. So it was his only escape plan.  On a few occasions he had to jump fences and hide in the bushes, but he always made it back to the car. 

Not that he was always a thief. Well, not continuously. He was always taking toys from friends as a child, and had a long unbroken streak of shoplifting household goods and clothes to supplement the inadequacy of the foster care system. To fit in, he had taken much. As much as the world had not given. 

But he grew older, and got a job, and a G.E.D. and for a few years, seemed to break the statistical pitfalls everyone said he would fall into. Then, indistinguishably, like nearly every broken soul, he tried to help another broken soul. One he was attracted to. And as he lend her a hand, she reciprocated with the forbidden fruit of her happiness. It wasn't in needle form at first.  He could've easily avoided that. Even broken souls know to avoid needles. But it wasn't long before the happiness was not obtainable. Not with her. Not with his job. Not with success. But only with the fruit. And it was most concentrated in a needle.

His job barely paid enough to subsist on. And forbidden fruit was an expensive luxury. But he kept it together for a while. He was happy, he thought. Even without her. And even when his job cut his hours and recommended he take a vacation.  He "was not the same," his manager said. They fired him a few weeks later when the register came up short for the third time during his shift. They did not press charges, and the manager even offered, "to pay to get you help, if you need it." 

He never needed help. He worked alone.

As he approached Sam's house, he had already rejected twenty other homes. Lights, layouts, fences, and the appearance of animals. Two homes met the criteria, but the side doors were locked. He tried to avoid front doors. 

The red house looked gray at night. There was a slip-and-slide in the front yard, which was partially well-maintained. Even at night the newer SUV car could be seen to need a washing. These suburbanites were too exhausted to even conform to the neighborhood norms. Perfect targets.

The thief had recently encountered one of these homes and scored some gold coins. Nearly four ounces of gold. Of course, he had to drive over to the next state to cash it in. But the thirty dollars in gas was easily written off. He wondered if he could write it off as a work expense on his taxes and nearly laughed out loud as he neared the sliding window back door.

He could barely see through the hanging curtains. It was dark. The kitchen was near, and the living room beyond.  No bedrooms nearby.  Perfect entry point. The door slide at his touch. 

Morons, he thought. 

Sam was barely conscious when he heard the familiar sound. Even though this sound was a sliding door, he at first thought a daughter had woken and closed the bathroom door...by the time the sound registered, the figure was pushing through the hanging curtains. 

In the dark, when the curtain parted like a figured cloak, it looked like a ringwraith or a dementor, or some other vile demon of his imagination, and Sam was filled with fear like never before in his life. 

Here was a situation he had prepared for, and now, he was only ten feet away, sitting along the back wall, unseen by this intruder, and yet helpless. His bat. His gun. Both in the bedroom.  He looked around...nothing but his wife's worthless fantasy trade paperback books on the bookshelf.  A Bible was on the shelf, but even its weight and power would be futile against a demon. 

The side table. He would smash the figure WWF style. But just as he lunged over to grab it, the intruder noticed him and leaped towards him. They landed awkwardly on the table, both trying to wrestle the other into an advantageous position. 
Sam thought about yelling out, but heard the "shwink" of the blade sliding into the open position, and then heard the "fssffst" of it piercing his side. His leg was now compressed under the assailant, and he lunged his leg outward with all his force, throwing the thief back towards the sliding door.  The dramatic movement of his body instantly threw him into unrelenting pain in his lower back.  The same pain he felt when he passed a kidney stone years earlier, only larger in area, and he could already feel the moisture of blood pooling in his shirt.  He began to groan. 

The figure was already standing.  The knife held outstretched in one hand, the other in front of his masked face, making the "Shhhhhh" sound. 

Sam held back the scream..."Whadda you want.." he moaned just loader than a whisper. 

"I want you to shut up, "  he forcefully replied just lower in volume. 

"I'll give you anything..."

"Shut up.  This wasn't supposed to happen. Why are you even up...you moron. This complicates everything...Is anyone else in the house?"

Sam thought about how to answer this question without endangering his family...

"Is anyone else in the house, " he intoned again, this time taking a step towards Sam. 

"Yes, no...I mean Yes." Sam felt his lower back, and instantly regretted giving up his family. Am I dying? Can I still defend my family? 

"Then shut up." "Oh God, why'd you have to be awake?" 

"Hey man, just, you know, I got some money in my wallet. I got a laptop, and I can get my wife's jewelry."  He grimaced in pain, knowing that the jewels were in his bedroom, steps away from her...He had to be smarter. They have to live.

"How much cash?"

"I don't know, I don't know...maybe $200? I might be have some more, somewhere.. {gasp}" 

"That's not enough...come on, man. You gotta have more. This is...this is attempted murder, armed robbery. Dammit, you fucktard, why'd you try to attack me?" 

"Look, I won't do anything, just go...take the cash. I'll give you twenty minutes and then I'll have my wife drive me to the hospital. I won't tell them anything. I don't know anything about you..."

"Where are they? Back there?" the figure pointed towards the bedrooms...all the doors were slightly cracked open. It was a house rule. The tiny glint of light from the main bathroom night light shown the way. 

"No please, they don't...They're young...please man...I'm nothing, I'll do anything, just leave my family alone..." Sam tried to rock his body upward, but the pain was paralyzing.  The blade must've hit something important.  "PLEASE, man, they have their whole life in front of them...but I'm nothing...please man, I'm begging you, leave my family alone." "Oh God, please, God, keep them safe..." 

"I'm not going to do anything...just making sure nobody has called the cops." With that, he disappeared down the hall. Sam fought through the pain to force himself up. He was disoriented. Again, he thought about screaming out, but what would that do...would she wake up? How would the figure react to another challenger? His wife was tough, but one jab with this tiny pocketknife had incapacitated him, how could she offer any resistance? 

Sam looked again for a weapon.  He was twenty steps away from the kitchen and the butcher block.  He took two steps, and saw the figure swiftly reappear around the hallway.

"Where doya think you're going, Sam? Yeah, I found your wallet," The figure tossed the wallet on the couch. "$45 dollars. $45 stinking dollars, Sam. And your family is still soundly asleep. Even that amazing guard dog.  Some family you got here, Sam." "I just committed a few felonies, 25 plus years in prison for a cell phone bill's worth of money."

Stupid dog. Stupid old dog.

"Look, like I said, just go now...Just go, I won't say anything." 

"Sure, sure. I wouldn't make it twenty miles."

"Look, buddy, this is a big town, there's plenty of crime, they'll just think you're somebody from the city. Cops don't investigate crap like this...{gasp}, plus you got gloves on...there's nothing to find..."

"Don't call me buddy. My name's Jimmy. We aren't friends. I stabbed you." 

"Don't tell me your name...I mean, Jimmy, it's probably not your name...that's fine, whatever...I forgive you, just go. I need to go to the hospital." 

"Ha ha...you FORGIVE me? For stabbing you? That's funny. That's LOL funny. What are you, Jesus? You want me to stab you in the other side as well?" "No, you ain't Jesus, you're just a Sam." 

"Yeah, nobody...just go man."

"You keep saying that, that you're a nobody...why? And my name is Jimmy; if you're going to die, you probably know the name of the idiot who killed you." 

"You aren't an idiot...Jimmy, I don't know your story. I know you didn't intend to stab me tonight...I was just awake, and like, I don't know, I'm bleeding here man, you gotta promise me not to harm my family..." 

"You'd die for them, huh?" 

"Yeah, if that's what it takes. If that's what it takes. There's no greater love...I'm ready, just promise me..." Sam fought through the pain to show his sincerity. 

"You ain't a nobody, then. You ain't a nobody. That's all I wanted growing up...just knowing somebody cared about me, wanted to keep me safe. Nobody stopped the harassment, the beatings, the loneliness, though. Nobody took no knife for me. I just wanted somebody, anybody to step in...say, this ain't right. This kid deserves better...but it never came; so don't tell me, you is a nobody." Jimmy tossed Sam a towel from the kitchen. "You a father. You a real man." 

"Look, man...look Jimmy, I'm sorry," He folded the towel and wrapped it around the wound.  He grimaced in pain. "I'm sorry life gave..."

"Don't tell me no lemonade crap. I don't need a councilor, I need more than $45. I already know life dealt me shitty." 

"Look, take my debit card." "The code is 1776." "It's stupid, I'm not even that patriotic..." "But there's money there...at least a thousand dollars. Take it all. I won't even change my card, or mark it as stolen until Monday. It's all insured anyway...{ugh} I'll get it all back..." 

"You need to get that," he pointed to the wound, "taken care of...man. You've lost a lot of blood. I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention. I don't even know why I bring a knife, it's just, you know...I don't know.  I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I ain't a killer. I just. I don't know." 

"I know, Jimmy. You aren't a bad person, you're just going through a rough patch. I am too. It's been a rough year, and my marriage is, I don't know...now I'm bleeding...I might die. This has not been my year...but like you said, I'm not a nobody...and you're something too..."

"You ever think you'd have to stab somebody to turn your life around? I mean, I can't do this. I don't want to live my life behind bars. I've barely lived."

"Get clean, Jimmy. As a former addict, I know. Get clean. The years aren't always great, and you'll always want it...but life isn't bad. Even with a marriage that needs help. My kids are great. My job sucks, but whatever, man. Life isn't about happiness, it's about finding contentment in between the joy and sorrow. You can't do that, ever, man, if you're using. Get clean." 

"Maybe you are Jesus, Sam." 

"I'm just trying to survive this, Jimmy, " He laughed, finally knowing that his family was safe. "I don't think Jesus ever tried to manipulate the situation to save his own life." 

"Yeah, but some heathen Roman did stab him in the side." 

"You aren't a heathen, or a Roman, Jimmy.  But you are a junkie. You might have stabbed me, but now I'm trying to save your life. Get clean, brother. And if you aren't going to kill me, can you please call an ambulance, so I can live through the night as well." 

"Yeah, you should get that looked at," he said and briefly smiled, "bye, Sam, get better." Jimmy slipped back through the sliding glass door and loudly slammed it shut. It was just loud enough. 

A fluttering of slipping footsteps came from the hallway, followed by an old bark.  The barking continued until the dog found his master lying head propped against the side table leaking precious fluid from his side.  The dog tried to lick the wound, but Sam patted his head.

"It's okay, old buddy. It's over now. He's gone." Sam closed his eyes. He felt like he could sleep for a very long time. He had done his job. 

"What's going on, are you watching TV...on my God, Sam! Sam!"

Sam pulled his eyes out of their deep slumber, "Huh, oh, it's okay honey, I was just a little restless, and I made a new friend..." 

"You're bleeding!!! OH GOD!"

"Oh yeah, we might want to get this checked out."

"Don't you dare go to sleep! Sam, listen, don't you go to sleep!"

Great, now even she's telling me I can't sleep. 

"Daddy, no, daddy, wake up! Wake UP!"

Okay, okay..."Jeez, can't a guy get a little sleep after a hard day of doing his job?" 

"No, daddy, we love you, stay awake for us."

"Yeah, Sam, we love you. You're job's not done."

...

"Huh..
...what...
...okay, yeah, whatever.  But I want a nap. A long nap at the hospital."




https://fostercare.com/10-reasons-you-want-to-be-a-foster-parent/ 

The Road to San Quentin is Paved in Broken Glass: A Short Story

The life of crime did not look favorable from where Kevin was standing.

He stood in the produce section and looked longingly towards the parking lot for some teleportation device or get-away car to escape his current dilemma.  He could, he considered, make a run for it. He might be able to make it a safe ways away from the Safeway, before his conscience would catch up to him.

He didn't even want the box of STD protection packed so close to its intended target in his pocket.  He didn't even have any friends that were girls, let alone girlfriends in this town.  He didn't have any  friends in this stupid town, for that matter. Mom wanted a new start. So she screwed up his life by moving a state away from their old life.

If he buggered it up any further, who cares. Maybe a night in juvie would get her attention.
"Happy 15th Birthday, Kevin, you're a felon now!" he daydreamed.  Maybe dad would drive up and show his bastard face. Probably not. Kevin pretended he didn't care. This was not about "them," he told himself.

The group of kids huddled around the bus stop did not eagerly await Kevin's return. Most were hardened by stray fists, foster-care, nomadism, neglect, second hand smoke, and blood alcohol in their systems since birth.  Because loyalty and protection were not practiced by their own creators, they made it a priority in their group.  It was the one character defect or vice they would not inherit from their birthers. Kevin had not proved himself, yet, so he was not a part of the family.

Kevin had seen the undercover store security agent long before he made it over to the produce section. The overzealous employee was no ninja, and yet he wasn't obvious either.  The employee, probably only 4 years older than Kevin, was eager for a bust.  And a condom bust is always a good story.  (Most of the group outside were products of accidents, but that's a different story completely).

Kevin decided to play it straight. He grabbed an apple...walked over to the checker with no line, and opened the small refrigerator and pulled out a Pepsi. The cashier rang both up quickly.

"Will that be it?" she asked.  She was probably in her early 30s. She probably had kids. This was going to be awkward. But not as awkward as being handcuffed or interrogated by a moralizing college kid.

"Uh, no..." He put his finger up to his lips to shush her, and dug out the 3 pack box of Trojan Enz.

The cashier tried not to shrug her shoulders. The poor, she thought, were always buying contraband with government money.  All they know is ignorance and sin,  better that they don't reproduce, she concluded.

"That'll be $6.25, son." she said, with emphasis on his youth.

Kevin pulled out his wallet and faked what he already knew.  "What? I had a ten dollar bill in here earlier.  I don't understand what happened...I'm sorry...I guess I don't have any money."

"Sure you don't, kid. Why don't you see that you never step foot in this Safeway again!" said the over-adrenalized security guard who had just made it behind him in line.

Kevin thought about some kind of retort about customer service...but didn't want to bring any more attention to his unpurchased prophylactics, and quickly exited the store.

He half walked/ran with his hands in his hoodie pocket towards the bus stop, looking over his shoulder once to see if the security guard had followed him. He hadn't, technically, broken any laws, right? He thought.

He saw the group nudge each other..."Hey there he is!" He heard one of them say...

Returning empty handed wasn't going to do him any favors. These weren't his type of friends...or his old type friends. Those old friends with perfect houses, and good grades, and parents who showed up to their baseball games. These kids, while obviously rougher, were more...he searched his head...real?

"You get the rubbers, McCallister?" said one of the older boys.

"Huh? My name's Kevin...Kevin Allen..."

"We know, dipshit, he was referring to Home Alone...So...did you get 'em?"

"I had them...I was nearly out the door, but then the security guy saw me, and I had to ditch..."

"What?  'Cause of a mall cop? Shit. This kid ain't nuthin'."

"Yeah, you're about ready to be ditched in a ditch, bitch," said one of the other boys with a wry grin, obviously proud of his poetic understanding of the language.

"Nice rhyming Tupac...com'on, isn't there something else I can do?"

"Yeah, you can get lost," said a kid two years his younger.

"Nah...don't do that. We should make you do something stupid. We should go back to the school and have you throw a rock through Mr. Hershey's window."

"Haha...yeah...we totally should!"

"What?  Who's Mr. Hershey?" Kevin asked nervously.

"Only the vice-principal at our school. A total d-bag. He suspended me for wearing a marijuana leaf t-shirt. He's a total jerk," said the oldest boy, Ramon, who acted like the leader.

"I don't even know him. It seems weird."

"It seems perfect. You don't know him, yet."

--------------------------

Kevin sat in the back of the bus filled with his new outlaw friends and looked at the scattered outcasts filling the other rows.  The rhyming kid continued his absurd rap, while another attempted to beat-box.  It was like a bad John Singleton film with various light toned actors.  Mall Junkyz.

Kevin nervously laughed. He did not want these as his friends.  He did not want the bus to be his life.  He wanted to wake up from this bad dream.

In a few minutes he was expected to throw a brick through his high school principal's window.  How stupidly bad ass.  How ironically rebellious.  He wondered if his "friends" would lead up to this event with some finger snapping and a well-choreographed, but never practiced, angry dance on the front steps of school's entrance.

Finger snapping or spontaneous song
outbursts equal hardcore gang members.
Run. Fast. Away.  

"Hey guys, maybe we should get some leather jackets and sew on T-Birds or Ponyboy or something?"  Kevin ventured.  Maybe he could be the funny one who didn't have to do stupid things.

"Shut up McCallister! We aren't some stupid street thugs, or Greasers from your mom's dvd collection."  "You like movies?  Ask Rickie what happened to his Disney movies?"

Kevin didn't have time to ask who Rickie was.  The boy who was beat-boxing immediately stopped and deadpanned, "Mom kicked Dad out.  Dad came by a few weeks later for his dvds and clothes, about the only stupid shit he owned, and Mom started shouting at him, tried to push him out of the house...he got real angry and beat her with my baseball bat. Not once. But like she was..."

"Okay, okay...I'm sorry...I realize I don't know..."

"No, SHUT IT KEVIN...  after he was done with her, he looked me right in the eye and said, '"you want some too, bitch."'  He started hitting shit all over the house. Then the cops rolled up, and he just went nuts. Ran out swinging.  They shot him like 25 times."  "Them's my family.  That's my story.  That's my DNA. So don't ever compare me to your John Travolta pop crap. Okay?"

"Sure. Yeah, sorry."

--------------------------------

The school was only a few hundred feet from where they exited the bus.  Kevin tried not to look up as they departed.  He didn't want to be on any cameras.  He wasn't sure where felony vandalism stacked on the local police departments investigation budgets.

"See that second window there...the one with the Tiger logo on it? That's Hershey's window. Do it man."

Kevin picked up an acorn sized rock. He had a decent arm.  Played middle school outfielder.  They were across the street and he figured the school's cameras wouldn't detect them this far.

He threw the rock.

Instantly he regretted his actions.  It was a great throw, it would've gunned down somebody at home plate.  The rock slammed into its intended target with all the force of gum drop.  It bounced off the window and fell harmlessly to the ground.  The sound, however, was impressive.

The boys looked around nervously, before breaking out in hilarious laughter.

"What a dud."

"Yeah, that failed worse than when my brother tried to make Long Island ice teas with Arizona tea and Coors."  The group laughed again.

"Come on guys," Kevin pleaded, "I threw that pretty hard."

"Yeah, but the window was too strong. You need a bigger rock.  Or a brick."

"Nah.  I did my part."

"Look, Kevin, we came here to break a window, and we aren't leaving until you break that window," Rickie said.

Kevin looked at them in disbelief.  They couldn't be serious. "You guys are assholes...I hate this stupid town."

He was hunched over before he realized that Ramon had knocked the wind out of him.

"Nobody calls us assholes, except us. And you ain't one of us, yet." Now do I need to...

"Punch me again?," Kevin said in-between gasps, "Nah, I get the point."

"Good.  Then how about you choose something..."

"...More substantial?  Yeah, it'll break this time."

Without hesitating, Kevin sprinted across the street, a small hitch in his gait from his throbbing abdomen, slowing only slightly to pull a decorative pavestone from the flowered plaza near the entrance to the school.  The large square of cement was garnished with ornate stones representing the graduating class of 2012.  Kevin didn't notice.

Vandalism brings out the Sasquatch in all of us.  

He hauled the stone over his head, continued in stride, and hurled the rock over the school fence like a soccer player inbounding a pass.

The window immediately surrendered.

The monument continued unimpeded into Mr. Hershey's desktop computer, and swiped it as well as the rest of the contents of the desk onto the floor like  one of those stupid Hollywood passion scenes where two excited lovers throw their expensive contents onto the floor for 8 minutes of tabletop love making, Kevin imagined.

Kevin hated his immature, sexually frustrated mind, as he stood in awe of his wreckage.  The sounds of cascading glass and debris had not even subsided when the piercing howl of the school's alarm system sounded.  He had heard an "AWESOME!" somewhere behind him.

Like all stupid criminals, Kevin finally thought, "Now what?"  He turned to take pride in his victory to see that his comrades-in-arms had all started scattering in every direction.  Even Rickie seemingly had a quarter mile and almost two city blocks on him at this point.

He wasn't even sure what direction his home was from the school.  The school bus took such an illogical route, that he was only slightly sure he lived to the West.

It was in that direction he darted when he heard the sirens.

Thus begun a long hour of cloak-and-dagger.  Thank God he always wore drab clothing.  And even more important was the GPS app on his phone.

He sat outside his home and corrected his breathing.  He told mom a long story about taking the wrong city bus, and having to walk home from the wrong stop.  He was sorry...next time he'd call her...he didn't think it was that big a deal.

Mom relented the interrogation when she saw no signs of alcohol or drugs in his demeanor.  He probably wasn't telling the truth...but he's a new kid in a new town. Misdemeanors are misdemeanors.

--------------------------------

Mom left a "Happy Birthday" note on the bathroom mirror, her days started around 6 am. She made him pancakes as well, his favorite when he was 10.  He was more of a donut person, now; but of course, she wouldn't know this.  

No message from Dad on his cell phone, and only a few messages on FB from his old friends. 

"Happy Birthday Kevin," he said to himself.  The night of bad sleep and anxiety left him with bags under his eyes.  He envied how girls could just cover up stuff like that with makeup.  

He considered staying home, but that might seem suspicious.  Plus mom couldn't afford cable, and his data plan was pathetic.  His 14th birthday was a bore-fest, but at least more people acknowledged it. No matter what, this birthday was going to suck, again. 

He dressed as opposite as he could from the previous night.  Combed his hair instead of the ball cap.  He took one last look in the mirror and scoffed.  It wasn't him.  He had changed since the night before.  

--------------------------------

He casually walked into his first period art class just as the bell rang.  The window, obviously, was the source of great excitement at Garry Hoy High School.  Some kids yelled out praises as genius as, "Oh HELL YA," and, "How do you like deez nutz now, GH!" The administration, had cordoned off the office area with yellow caution tape.  The resource officer was communicating with other official looking guys that looked like cops.  Even a news van was in the area.  Kevin did his best to act like the rest of the kids, while also keeping a low profile.

Twenty minutes into art class, Kevin was almost beginning to feel inspired to actually do his figure drawing assignment.  The teacher, Mr. Monet (seriously), when asked by a student who he thought had done this, said, "probably some moron kid with daddy issues who's failing Geometry."  Kevin was still taking Algebra, so nice try, Monet. 

Then the classroom door opened and the dean of students passed a note to Mr. Monet.  Kevin squirmed in his seat.  Mr. Monet looked at the note oddly, looked around the room, but didn't make eye contact with Kevin, and shook his head.  Kevin remembered to breathe.

"Anybody seen Kevin Allen?" Monet finally announced. Great, even his teacher didn't know who he was.

A few kids looked Kevin's way.  "Kevin, they's looking for ya," said Robbie, a well intentioned but slow kid who had no business being in any art class.

Kevin stood up, and did the walk of shame in front of a silent class.  Someone whispered, "no way he did the Hershey job."

The Dean of Students was an imposing man of about 30.  He must've worked out at some point.  He wasn't genial or mean.  He just was.  They didn't talk the entire walk across campus, and then pointed to a seat in the office.

Kevin sat.  His new friends had ratted him out in twenty minutes.  His hands were sweating.  He wiped them on his un-Kevin-like clothing. He had no alibi. He was nervous as hell. Could he ask for a lawyer? He didn't know.  

"Hi Kevin," Mr. Hershey said, as he appeared uncomfortably close to Kevin's chair.  "I'm Mr. Hershey, Dr. Hershey, actually, but you don't need to call me that."  He held out his hand to shake Kevin's.  Kevin wiped his once more.  "I don't think we've formally met."

"Yeah, no. I don't get into trouble. So no, we haven't met."  Kevin replied in his first act of offense.

"Haha. I do a lot on this campus, Mr. Allen, discipline is only a small aspect of what my job entails."  "Anyway, why don't you follow us down the hall."

Hershey opened the door to an office and Kevin almost walked in...it was Hershey's office.  Nobody had touched a thing.  It was as if a bomb had exploded under his desk. Valkyrie.  The stone had settled near the entrance,  all the decorative marbles were scattered around the room like pieces of shrapnel.

"Oh, whoops, force of habit, we can't do this here," Hershey laughed, it was genuine, he got a sick pleasure out of this torture.

They moved to a large conference hall.  The Dean of Students was on the far side flipping through papers.  Hershey sat near the door, forcing Kevin towards the back wall with two chairs.  He sat.  Almost immediately the school's resource officer, decked in official police uniform, sat next to him.

Kevin thought about making a joke, something about the school being really serious about freshman kids getting a D in algebra class.  Instead he swallowed nervously. These guys didn't appear to appreciate humor.

"So, Mr. Allen, or Kevin, we can call you Kevin, right?" Kevin nodded. "Why do you think you're here today?"

"Well, I'm guessing it's not my math grade?"

"No, no, but you probably want to pick that grade up, too."  "You got a nice look at my office, didn't you?"

"Yeah, somebody did a number on it...I'm guessing you think I know something about it."

The room chuckled.  Not a good sign.

"Kevin, you know, I didn't know you before today.  Transfer student.  From a different state.  But your transfer records are pretty clean.  This window job doesn't look like something you'd normally do."

"Obviously.  'Cause I didn't do it."

"Hmmm.  Well, we seem to have two students who've already pointed to you, and we've got this..."

The resource officer hit a few buttons on a remote control and the projector turned on.  After what seemed like forever for it to warm up, and the officer to hit the right input, a video appeared.  It was clear as day (for a night shot).  Kevin's textbook soccer inbounds throw was there from almost the exact reverse direction.  His face was easily recognized.

"Honestly, we didn't know who this boy was. We were looking through our photo database, but we noticed Ramon there in the back.  And with Ramon, is the usual suspects.  It wasn't too hard after that..."

"I didn't. I know what this looks like..."

"Look Kevin, save yourself some embarrassment. I called your father down in California, he seems to like the idea of juvenile hall..."

"Of course he does;"  Kevin couldn't hold it in, the floodgates of tears and emotion emptied out, "He doesn't give a shit about me. Why not just kill me, so his life would be better...he wouldn't even have to pay mom any child support."

"Look Kevin, this isn't about your dad.  This is about this felony act of vandalism committed on our school grounds," The officer interjected.

"Oh, is it?" "I don't give a shit about this school, or this state, or Mr. Hershey's office, or Ramon, or my dad..."

"Guys, Travis (who must've been the resource officer) and Glen (the Dean),  could you give me a few moments with Kevin."

Reluctantly Travis got up, he didn't get to escort many kids out of the school in handcuffs.  "Just push the button and I'll be right back here," pointing to the school's walkie-talkies."

Hershey nodded.

After they had left the only sound was Kevin's loud sobbing.  A teenage boy under duress and dealing with daddy issues was not a pretty sight.  Kevin rubbed his face and nose on his shirt.

Hershey shoved across the conference table a box of Kleenex.

"I don't know if you saw the photo in my office.  The frame is all broken now, because of your remodeling job...(Kevin almost chuckled), anyways.  it was a picture of me, my ex-wife Cassandra, and my son James."

"I'm sorry about that.  I'm sure they'll make me pay for all the damage." Kevin was beyond fighting the obvious. He was caught.

"I'm not concerned with the money. I'm sure it will come in over $10,000 depending on what overpriced contractor the district hires.  Plus there are files on the computer they will try to save...I'm sure that will cost time and money.  But like I said, money isn't the issue."  "You see, that boy in that photo, James, was my son.  He was about your age, a little older, when he died.  That was our last family photo."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Did he get cancer or something?  My aunt died of cancer a few years ago."

"No, it wasn't cancer.  James, was, was a lot like me."  Mr. Hershey was no longer looking straight at Kevin, but somewhere in the past.  "James didn't listen well to his mother.  He was afraid of me, but I wasn't there a lot at that time.  I was finishing my doctorate while continuing to teach classes. I let, I let work priorities get in the way. That was a decade ago, but it feels like yesterday to me."  

Kevin was trying to understand what manipulative tool the principal was using to get him to confess to everything.  Hadn't he already confessed?  Why was this guy opening up?

"Kevin started hanging out with  the wrong kids. Kids a lot like Ramon. Kids who..." Hershey wiped away a tear.  "They said it was suicide. But James was never depressed. Angry, yes. Rebellious, yes. But he wouldn't take his own life. He died on the railroad tracks. I'm not sure to this day why he was down there, but I think it was a dare, or a stunt, or something along those lines. His friends...those kids, they never came to the funeral. Never sent a card. No memorial near the tracks. Those kids were losers...ARE losers. My son James, wasn't a loser. But he died because he choose a life of losers temporarily."

"You know how long it took for Ramon and the others to rat you out?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Less than a minute."  "And I saw the punch.  I saw the coerced you to do it.  Forced you to do it."

"I couldn't still said no," Kevin said between sobs, not sure if guilt or empathy caused this second wave of emotion, "I could've ran away..."

"Yeah...we all get choices. We don't get to do-overs in life. We can't change the past. I wish to God, I could go back and redo things with my James. I"m sure you wouldn't have gone out with these boys last night."

"I hate those guys. I just want my old friends, my old family..." Kevin confessed to this strange adult. This man who opened up about things that nobody talks about.

"I know Kevin. I don't know if your dad was always an asshole, but he sure was on the phone. I'm not sure if he'll realize in time, how precious you are...I hope he does."

Kevin buried his head in his arms.  "Did you call my mom yet?"

"Yeah. She's in the other room. She's watching this whole thing on a monitor."

"Really?" Kevin wanted to be mad...but guilt overrode his anger, "I'm such a failure, I'm sorry Mom," He looked around the room for the camera.  

"No, Kevin. You are not a failure. You are not a loser. You are a kid, a kid who's angry at life and his dad, and you did a stupid thing to impress some stupid kids. Kids, unlike adults, get reprieves sometimes. I'm offering you a reprieve. I'm offering you a chance to make this up. No juvie. No expulsion. No blackmark on your record."  "I think you should transfer to the other school in town.  Get away from Ramon and his crowd." "And you will work with me over Christmas Break to get my office back into working order.  You'll help the school recoup some of the cost."

"You can do that?  I mean, doesn't the school need to make a big deal about this, and the money...and stuff..."

"Look, Kevin. Am I principal, or am I principal? And the district wastes money on stupid stuff every year. It's about time we invested in saving a student's life instead of dumping more money into a new basketball scoreboard."

"So what happens now?"

"Well, I think your mother walks in here, you give her a big hug, do a month of chores without complaint, and later today, go enroll over to Rob Downey Sr. High School and start over as the real Kevin Allen. I'll call you in a week or so with a schedule of when and how we become business partners."

"Business partners...haha," Kevin laughed. It felt good to laugh. It had been a long time. "Why me, Mr. Hershey, I mean, of all the kids who get straight A's and...?"

"A good shepherd will leave a flock of a hundred to go after one wayward sheep." "Besides, it's your 15th birthday, and well, call it a strange kind of gift."

Kevin stood up and walked over to Mr. Hershey who had his hand out to shake.  Kevin hugged him instead. His tears soaked into his grey sports jacket. It was awkwardly too long, in the professional sense, but Mr. Hershey did not fight it off.

"Thank you Mr. Hershey.  I'll make this up to you."

"Call me Milton, we work together now, Kevin."

At that moment Kevin's mother abruptly opened the door and ran to her son.  She hugged him like a parent that had been away for years overseas. They shared an intimacy that Milton looked at with a little envy.

She stood, mascara running down her face and thanked Mr. Hershey with a kiss to the cheek.  He tried not to blush; she was not unattractive.

"It's been so long since I've experience mercy, I don't know how to thank you..."

Milton Hershey thought of a few ways, none of which were professional or appropriate, and kept them all to himself.  He smiled, and said "Maybe in a few years, you could invite me to his graduation, and we can celebrate his turnaround."

"Yeah, we can do that, " she looked at him the way he not seen in a long time.

As the Allen family walked out the side door, and out of Hershey's jurisdiction, he went back to what was left of his office. As he began straightening up the disaster of his last ten years, he wondered if he could wait another three years to start over himself.  He tossed his tear stained jacket to the side and thought, to hell with professionalism.

He walked outside, just before the Allen's reached their car...

"Hey, it might go a whole lot faster if I help you guys enroll over at RDS, we can take my car."  "Kevin will have to sit in the middle of the back seat, though, I don't want him near my windows." 

Hooters or Bust

"I'm sorry that this is what I've become! I'm sorry that it's not good enough for you now, or ever."

"That's not true. Not true. But you did used to, you used to be different. You hadn't given up yet. Now, now, you're just a..."

"What...a bum? A piece of shit? What am I? I'm no different. This is the same man you married ten years ago. I was nothing then...just younger, not as fat, maybe...but just as talentless."

"You're not talentless. You're depressed. And it's been for some time. That's the only thing that's changed. You're not happy anymore."

"Yeah, I'm not happy!" And with that pronouncement, Jim Zimmerman grabbed his car keys and slammed the door.

She was right, of course. Women are almost always right, which is why men like Jim have to slam doors and drive away.

He didn't have a destination. He considered driving to the seedy part of town filled with strip clubs and disillusionment. He wondered if one of those establishments was dark enough that nobody would notice him. He wanted someplace dark and delusional so that he could continue feeling sorry for himself.

It wouldn't have mattered if somebody did notice him. He was no longer an Elder at FaithSprings Evangelical Church; and he was no longer Head of Sales at Price First Honda.  Gas prices had dropped, and the market for hybrid vehicles, the division that Jim headed, had fallen 24% in two years. Corporate didn't care how similar this drop was to the national average, they needed fall-guys instead of pragmatic answers, and cutting Jim's $55,000 salary made some fiscal sense.  Jim was offered to go back to the sales floor, a job he hadn't done in seven years, and one with more daily stress and a variable income based on sales numbers.  In a fit of childishness, because the executive vice president of sales of the company was always throwing thematic parties, he chalked the windows of all his gas-freindly inventory with Harry Potter insults: Mudblood, Half-blood Prince, and Muggle-Born, before tagging the VP’s Land Rover with Voldemort.  

It was very un-Potterish.  

He resigned as an Elder (and the almost volunteer position of youth pastor) because he refused to terminate the contract of their senior pastor.  The senior pastor's wife recently left him, and his sermons had taken a sour note. The attendance dropped from a high of 650 in each Sunday service to just under that number total for both services. The tithes obviously fell substantially, and the church was worried if it could pay for renovations they had just refinanced.

Jim felt it wasn't Christian, to kick a guy, especially when he's down. Pastor Steve hadn't broke any codes of morality, or preached anything sacrilegious.  Still, the other Elders pointed to his contract. The minister was responsible for keeping the attendance numbers up, and he had failed. Jim's parting words were, "Maybe you should rename the church FinancialSprings!" and in typical Jim fashion, he slammed the door. Nobody chuckled. Elders, unlike wives, are not always right, and usually have a worse sense of humor.  

Both events happened in one week, and played hell on Jim's psyche. He was a good man. Never really drank. Didn't care for the few times he tried drugs. Was a decent father. An okay husband. Never cheated on her, or any girl, for that matter.  But being unemployed in his early thirties, felt like a judgement straight from the heavens.

Instead of cursing the heavens, he started damning people to hell; or more exactly, virtual hell, as he devoted his time to first-person-shooter video games. He enjoyed online killing, he wasn't sure why, maybe it was an evolutionary thing; although Jim didn't necessarily believe in evolution. At least not ape to man evolution; but maybe like those birds on that one island that don't fly anymore because they don't have predators, evolution. That made a little sense, in his mind. He also started drinking cheap beer by the half-racks, as an outward sign of youthful rebellion that he had never participated in.  All these changes felt good, at first.  Like a vacation from his life. Life, up until this point was all about responsibilities and making good decisions. Like anyone who had been a something, once, though, he realized he was devolving. He just didn't know how to return from this vacation. Every so often, his escape into other-worldliness and indulgence manifest itself with disastrous results with the actual spinning world. His wife and kids had even taken a vacation without him, as they needed to escape his outbursts of illogicalness. 

The worst came when he confronted the guy who came to repossess his 2013 Accura ILX Hybrid and ended up getting punched in the face.  His wife found him sleeping it off in the front lawn two hours later. Another notch in the belt of awesomeness. If only he had been packing an RPG, he wouldn't have an empty spot in his driveway, and a splitting headache.  Okay, an RPG would be really messy, maybe just a Heckler & Koch G36. 

Jim felt the same type headache setting in as he sat cramped in his wife's 2000 Honda Insight with a reconstructed title.  Many salesmen and buyers on his former lot wouldn't be caught dead driving one of these "gay" cars, and yet, well, here he was.

The normalcy of his own neighborhood faded the longer he drove. Some of these spots he had visited while in college, a bar here, a supermarket he forgot existed, and then, on the corner of a bunch of big-box restaurants, a new sign: Hooters.

He laughed. His wife would never let him go to Hooters, at least he thought she wouldn’t. He didn't even know a Hooters had opened in his town, not that they would've gone there.

"What's the harm," he thought. "It's not a strip club. It's just a restaurant with sexist outfits."

He wondered if they still served food at 10:45 at night. He was craving bar food. French fries and fried stuff.

"Just one, honey?" asked Shelly, the hostess who was probably too old to be forced into her costume. "You wanna sit in the bar?"

"Yeah, it's just me," Jim sighed. Even when he was working, he rarely ate out alone. He wondered if divorced guys had to do this. He shivered.

She threw down a cork coaster.  "You want a menu shug?"

"Yeah..."

She was already gone.  He looked around. It didn't look much different than an Applebee's late at night, except for the random orange butt-tight shorts. A few people drinking alone, a few couples.  Even a few families that didn't get the memo that 10:45 at night was too late for kids to be eating on a school night (AND AT HOOTERS!). It felt good to judge someone else, Jim thought. He had been too hard on himself. Talentless. He was funny, kinda. And he could facilitate and organize people really well. Or at least, he used to.

"Hey stranger, you know what you want?"

Jim looked straight into the young boobs of a girl he didn't know.  He looked up, and still, didn't remember her.  "Oh, umm. No. I've never been here. I haven't got a menu yet."

"No, silly, you know what you want to drink?"

"Oh, umm. Just bring me whatever is on tap, domestic."

She sighed..."We have, like, ten different beers that..."

"Coors. Coors is fine."

"You still don't remember me, do you?"

"No. I'm sorry, I'm..."

"It's Krystal. You were my youth pastor a bunch of years ago..."

"Oh, oh yeah, Krystal...wow..." He thought how bad he must've been at ministry to lead a girl to Hooters in her early twenties.

"Don't worry, I'm just doing this to earn my way through college. It's not like I'm pole dancing or anything..."  She must've seen the look of failure on his face.

"No judgement...I worked all kinds of odd jobs, I mean, they don't really have a male-version of Hooters..."

"I'll just bring you that Coors."

He threw his head down into his folded arms on the bar top. He wanted to nuzzle away into the beer stained wood grain. "Great. Just great. Can't even disappear at a Hooters." He wished he was at home, holding his Playstation controller, shooting evil terrorists.

"This one's on me, Jim." Krystal said as she sat down his frothy beer. It was mostly foam.

The carelessness of the drink delivery guaranteed she wasn't hitting on him, even though it was free.

"Oh, thanks Krystal, but you don't have to do that..."

"I know. So Whadda you want? Buffalo wings?

"I'm not sure...I never got a menu...I don't know what's good."

"Well, most people get wings, but I like the nachos and burgers."

"Hmm. Well, I've never eaten owl before...are the thighs any good?" Jim joked.

"Oh, a “Hooters” joke…Haha...please, please don't ask for the largest breasts we have to offer...it gets old."

"Oh shit...I mean, jeez, I'm sorry...I wasn't going there...I...just bring me some nachos and fries please...I know they don't go together but..."

"Okie-dokie"

He downed the 6 drinkable ounces of beer in one drink, the froth slowly settled back down into the cup.  He watched it slowly coalesce into something like beer. What am I doing with my life? Why am I at hooters drinking cheap beer and sticking my foot in my mouth? I should just go home and put my resume on Monster.com.  No more feeling sorry for myself.  Time to get on with it. Time to get on with it.

He pulled his cell phone out.

One text from his wife: Please come home. The kids heard us...they're scared and sad. They...we want you to come home. 


His eyes watered.  She was a good woman. She let him slide into this depression without guilt. She carried them financially and emotionally, while he sat in self-pity. She shielded the kids from his fall. But a year of nothingness will stretch anyone.  He didn't know what to text back.  


Krystal brought out the fries.  "The nachos will be out in a minute. You want another drink?"  


"Oh, um. Better not, I need to get home."  


"Okay, but next one's free too... 'member Pastor Steve?  The old pastor at our church, he's at the other end of the bar. He offered to pay."  


"What?"  The oddity of him, Jim, an aging man, getting two free drinks at Hooters. He felt like photographing his free beers on Instagram and tagging them with #sororitysisterprivilege.  

"Pastor Steve is here?"  Jim grabbed his fries and started towards the other side of the bar.  


"Don't call me pastor, please," said Steve, as he pulled his notebook, and Bible reference book to the side to make room for Jim.  


"Alright, but it looks like you're still practicing, Father-Steve, " Jim joked.  


"Well, ready-to-be-used, is all. Ready to be used. Might has well use this time to stockpile sermons."  


"So...you didn't give up?" Jim regretting saying it instantly.  "I mean, the church, it just gobbled you up..." 


"Yeah, it, the church, can do that," Steve said as he gulped down some blackish brew. "Jim, you're blind. You live here, in the Pacific Northwest, in the brewery capital of the world, and you're drinking Coors."  


"Yeah, well, hey, wait a minute, don't get all holier than thou with me, you're at a Hooters..." 


"I am. I am. You forget I'm from Kansas City. This is as close to Southern food or bbq I can get.  The wings aren't bad, and I do live just down the street."  


"Oh, maybe I should've order the wings, I let Krystal talk me into the nachos."  


"They're good enough."  

Jim gulped down a long drink from his mocked beer, and found the courage to move beyond pleasantries. "So, did you ever think about going back to the Midwest, after...you know after?"

"Not really. Sarah ran back there anyway. I don't have much there but old seminary guys and cousins in jail. And the idea of seeing any of them, especially Sarah, seems more depressing than sticking it out here."  

"Yeah, sorry about that whole Sarah mess, I didn't really know her, but nobody..."

"Yeah, nobody deserves that. True. But I wasn't a great husband. I think I loved the church more, well, not the church but the idea of a successful church more, more than I loved her.  I did love her once. But I got complacent in my marriage. It takes work, as you probably know, to keep things afire." 

"Um, yeah."  

"Not real convincing, Jim. Please don't tell me that your marriage is in trouble?"  

"It isn't. Or maybe it is. I don't know. She would know. I just haven't been, much...much of a man, much of anything, for some time, now. I guess if I could pull it together, maybe..."  "Gawd, look at us...consoling each other like priests in a confessional. Is this your normal Hooter's small talk? Haha..."

"Haha, well, you've heard of the priesthood of believers. What if this is what we're supposed to be like? Isn't this what Jesus wanted, his Disciples in some sketchy area of town, speaking truth into each other's lives?" 

"Well, don't go calling me Mary Magdaline. I'm just a hostess," Krystal perfectly chimed in from behind the counter, obviously she had heard part of their conversation.  "Although, if you want to wash my feet, I'm always game for a pedicure."  

Both Jim and Steve looked at her in bewilderment. Where did this Biblical knowledge come from? 

"Don't look at me so weird, guys, the story of Mary Magdaline isn't exactly obscure. I can work here and read the Bible every once in a while, sheesh."  She slid Jim's nachos over to him.  

"You must've had a good youth pastor, once," Steve said knowingly.  

"I did," she smiled back, "You need anything else? Hot sauce? Sour cream? I'm not offering another cold beer, because we know what the Lord says about drunkenness…"  

"…Oh yeah, what's that?" Jim jokingly replied.  

"He's against it. I don't remember the exact verse, because my youth pastor quit."  

"Well he can make it up to you," Steve said, "he doesn't have any oils to wash your feet with, but he does have some Coors light...the alcohol might have a similar effect." 

"I've been here,” she twirled her arms around at the ambiance,  “for six months, pastor Steve, and that may be the most disgusting comment I've ever heard," she said laughing, "but I guess I walked into it, didn't I."  She smiled and reluctantly went on with her business on the other side of the bar.  

"Wow. Just wow, guys. Is this a set-up. Is there some camera hidden in the back, and we are on Christian-Candid-Camera?"  Jim asked.  

"Haha. No, although that'd be a fun show. Catch what the worship leader says under his breath when his mic get turned off, or have some guy steal the money out of the offering, and watch the usher's response..." 

They laughed and watched Krystal joyously serve another soul some spirits.  

"That girl is too, uh, old, now to be a part of any youth ministry, and much too young to ever be in a conversation with guys our age talking about rubbing oils or alcoholic drinks on any part of her body." 

"Don't I know," Steve replied with a hint of sorrow, "although if we were priests..." 

They laughed again, and enjoyed a brief moment of silence. They had laughed well, and it was good.  

Steve continued, "You know, I never got to thank you." 

"For what?" 

"For the moral stand you made on my behalf, for being the lone dissenter.  I'm sorry you lost a church in the process."


"Well, it wasn't right. It's not right. You're a good pastor, a good man...numbers shouldn't matter."  


"No, they shouldn't...but they have bills to pay, and I was running on fumes. I should've taken a sabbatical. But I let pride keep me there. It wasn't just the numbers, my intentions were wrong.  I lost track of why I joined the ministry. I allowed myself to be lonely. She left me, yet I had stopped talking to her, and God for some time. I thought I was a superman. I thought I could do it all on my own. I see all of this now. It's much clearer." Steve's eyes strayed to a shapely waitress on the far side of the restaurant. 


Jim looked over, it was a good view, a small smile started to form on his mouth.  


"Don't you judge me, Jim. I'm a free man, and she's marginally closer to my generation. Plus, I come here for the food. You, however, don't seem to know the food, and are still married, even if there are sexual problems..." 


Pffft. Jim slapped his hand over his lips to keep the rest of his beer in his mouth, and swallowed quickly. "I never said we had problems with our sex life," He said laughing.  

"I know. But there always is. Or usually something related to sex is the problem. At least from the man's perspective. You already told me that you felt like less than a man."  

"I was referring to my lack of job stuff. And becoming lazy and drinking."   


"Oh, never mind, those things do wonders to a guys libido." 


"I never realized how funny you were, Steve.  Anyways, not working, not making money, It just rips at me...I've always had a job."  


"That it does. That it does."  "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man..."  

"I love how you guys do that...just throw out some Bible verse for every season of life."  

"Yeah, well, it's all I know. The word. I spent years in seminary, studying Greek, Hebrew...The King James version. I didn't learn know how to keep a wife happy. They didn't teach me about church politics. But I know the Word, and I occasionally speak with God, and that keeps me going."  

"Again, sorry Steve...she was...she didn't..."

"She was human, Jim. Just like your wife. We men tend to get caught up in things. stuff.  Sales numbers...attendance...bull shit. Stuff that doesn't matter. I know I did. You better stay diligent, Jim. Good women don't hang out in Hooters, looking for broken down men like us. Let me guess...she doesn't know you're here, does she?"  

"No, not exactly."  

"Well, good thing there's hardly any alcohol in that Coors, because I think you should head home, kiss your woman, and apologize."  

"Yeah, but I'd hardly know where to start."

"Well, obviously I'm no expert, but I think "I'm sorry," said authentically, means a lot."  "That's what I'm looking for: authenticity. In my walk with God, in my next church, in my friends. Perhaps, someday, in a woman.  And you have it."  "It's early, way too early to be talking about, really, but 

I want you to work with me. I'm starting a new church. The Evangelical church is looking for another location on this side of town. FaithSprings recommended me."

"They did?  I mean...what?  You want me?" 

“Because they knew I just needed a break.  I was good at what I did, once.  Just like you were, are. And being broken has made me stronger. I trust you Jim. I like you being in my corner. You defended me, like a good Samaritan,” he took another sip of his dark beer.  “They should make a beer called the Good Samaritan.” 

“Yeah,”  “Well, maybe not. Beer doesn’t exactly do good things for most people.” 

“Good point. Moderation.  Anyway, I can’t offer you much money, now, obviously, as the church isn’t even off the ground yet, but there is a little planting money, and I’d like you to preach…”

“But I never went to seminary, I only know the basics…”

“The people need the basics, Jim. They need a leader, one who won’t make mistakes, and one who has a true heart, like you do, for authenticity. We won’t be phonies, Jim.  I want this to be real, and I don’t care about numbers, or programs, or what the building looks like. The youth, our nation, is looking past these status symbols.  People want the real deal. I want the real deal. I want it to be about Jesus!”

Jim felt a shiver go down his back. This was everything he wanted as well, and it frightened him. Could he develop a sermon and preach? Could he do it authentically? Could he be used, by God?  And if he was good at it…what does that mean, at best a salary of $32,000 dollars? Shut up mind, it’s not about money. 

“Look, I’ve given you a lot to think about. I want to you to go home and talk to your wife. Well, do other stuff first, then talk to your wife…here’s my cell number…”

“Geez, I don’t know,” Jim said smiling, “I don’t think I could work for a pervert.” 

“Weren’t you a car dealer before?  You can work with anyone.” 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim quietly drove home. He missed the sound of a gas engine. He intended to buy a real car again, soon.  Although if he became a pastor, it might be a long time. 

He opened the door to his house and saw his wife crying on the loveseat.  “Why didn’t you call or text me back?” 

“I’m sorry. I ran into an old friend.” 

“Really, where at?  We’ve been worried sick. The kids are probably listening at their doors, pretending to be asleep.” 

“Well, this is going to sound weird, but I had a spiritual encounter at Hooters.” 

“A what? At Hooters?  I’m sure you did…” her whole expression changed.  Jim knew this look from the few times he was genuinely in trouble. 

“I’m serious. I got offered a job. It had to be God. It was too weird not to be God. I had a spiritual encounter at Hooters.” 

She knew her husband too well. He wasn’t lying, she could see something different about him as well. She saw the old Jim.

“Well, this, I gotta hear. But you better go hug your kids first.”

As he galloped up the stairs by twos, the noise of little feet sprinting back to their beds, with giggles giving away their former positions, before he ambushed them with hugs, she smiled. She wiped the last tear away, before another trickled down her cheek. This one started from a different place, a better place, and she let it travel her whole face.