(Etgar Keret, George Saunders) A Reading by George Saunders & Etgar Keret.

Published Date: October 8, 2010

Transcription

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the AWP Podcast Series. You are now tuning into a reading by Etgar Keret and George Saunders. This event originally occurred at the AWP Conference in Denver on Friday, April 9, 2010. The reading was sponsored by the Wilkes University Low-Residency Program and Blue Flower Arts. Now, you will hear Jim Warner provide introductions.

Jim Warner:

Good evening. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who like to sleep next to the wall and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed. Over the last hour or so of conversation, I have discovered to my pleasant surprise that Etgar and I follow in the latter rather than the former.

Well, when I was given the opportunity to introduce Mr. Keret this evening, I was stunned. I am a huge fan and to have this opportunity is humbling, not nearly as humbling as looking at every one of you.

A magic trick where a magician pulls more than rabbits out of their hats, a Uzbekistani town with a entrance to hell, a girl who turns into a hairy fat man with a passion for beer and soccer, this is the beautiful world of Etgar Keret. Over the last decade, the voice of young Israel has provided us with such wonderful work as The Nimrod Flipout, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God, as well as The Girl on the Fridge, which is actually a collection of his two earlier works finally translated into English, 2008. The fragile beauty that translates Kneller's, a family, into Wristcutters underlies his multifacet abilities, including Jellyfish, which he co-directed with his wife Shira Geffen, which in 2007 won the Camera d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, and $9.99, which is again a collection of stop-animation film. Without any further ado, Mr. Etgar Keret.

Etgar Keret:

Hi. The first story I'm going to read is actually from my next collection, which I just finished writing, and it's like the prologue, it's the first story in the collection, and it's called Suddenly, There's a Knock on the Door.

"Tell me a story," the bearded man sitting on my living room sofa orders. The situation, I must admit, is anything but pleasant. I'm someone who writes stories, not someone who tells them, and even that isn't something I do on commission or under duress. The last time anyone asked me to tell him a story, it was my son. That was a year ago. I told him something about a fairy and a ferret, I don't even remember what exactly, and within two minutes he was fast asleep. But here the situation is fundamentally different, because my son doesn't have a beard or a pistol, because my son asked for the story nicely and this man is simply trying to rob it for me. I try to explain to the bearded guy that if he puts his pistol away, it will only work in his favor, in our favor. It's hard to think up a story with the barrel of a loaded pistol pointed at your head. But the bearded guy insists. "In this country," he explains, "if you want something, you've got to use force."

He just got here from Sweden, and in Sweden it's completely different. Over there, if you want something, you ask politely, and most of the time you get it. But not in the stifling, sultry Middle East. All it takes a single week around here to figure out how things work, or rather, how things don't work. The Palestinian asked for a state nicely. Did they get one? They hell they did. So they switched to blowing up kids on buses and people started listening. The settlers wanted a dialogue. Didn't anyone pick up on it? No way. So they started getting physical, pouring hot oil on the border patrolmen, and suddenly they had an audience. In this country, might makes right, and it doesn't matter if it's about politics or economics or parking space. Brute force is the only language we understand.

Sweden, the place the bearded guy made aliya from, is progressive and way up there in quite a few areas. Sweden isn't just ABBA or IKEA or the Nobel Prize. Sweden is a world unto itself, and whatever they have, they got by peaceful means. In Sweden, if he'd gone to the Ace of Base soloist, knocked on her door and asked her to sing for him, she'd ask him in and make him a cup of tea. Then she'd pull her acoustic guitar out from under the bed and play for him, and all this with a smile. But here? I mean, if he hadn't been flashing a pistol, I'd have thrown him out right away. "Look," I try to reason. "Look, yourself," the bearded guy shoots back and cocks his pistol, "It's either a story or a bullet between the eyes." I see my choices are limited. The guy means business. And I've got to admit, he has a point. We do live in a violent region and it's time I started respecting that.

"Two people are sitting in a room," I begin. Suddenly, there's a knock on the door. The bearded guy stiffens, and for a moment there I think maybe the story is getting to him, but it isn't. He's listening to something else. There's a knock on the door. "Open it," he tells me, "and don't try anything. Get rid of whoever it is, and do it fast, or this is going to end badly." The young man at the door is doing a survey. He has a few questions, short ones, about the humidity in summer and how it affects my disposition. I tell him I'm not interested in answering this questionnaire, but he pushes his way inside anyway. "Who's that?" He asks me, pointing at the bearded guy. "That's my nephew from Sweden," I lie. "His father died in an avalanche and he's here for the funeral. We're just going over the will. Could you please respect our privacy and leave?"

"Hey, pal," the pollster says, and pats me on the shoulder, "what's a few questions between friends? Give the guy a chance to earn a living. They pay me per respondent." He takes a seat on the sofa. The Swede sits next to him. I'm still standing, trying to sound like I mean it. "I'm asking you to leave," I tell him, "Your timing is way off."

"Way off, eh?" He opens his plastic binder and pulls out a big revolver. "Why is my timing off? Because I'm darker? Because I'm not good enough? When it comes to Swedes, you got all the time in the world, but for a Moroccan, for a war veteran who left pieces of his spleen behind in Lebanon, you can't spare a fucking minute?" I try to reason with him, to tell him it's not that way at all, that he simply caught me at a delicate point in my conversation with the Swede, but the pollster raises his revolver to his lips and signals me to shut up. "Cut the crap," he says. "Stop making excuses. Sit down over there, and out with it."

"Out with what?" I ask. The truth is that I'm pretty uptight by now. The Swede has a pistol too. Things might get out of hand. East is east and west is west and all that, different mentalities, or else he could lose it simply because he wants the story all to himself, solo. "Don't get me started," the pollster warns, "I've got a short fuse. Come on, let's have it."

"That's right," the Swede joins in, and pulls out his piece too. I clear my throat and start all over again, "Three people are sitting in a room."

"I know, suddenly, there's a knock on the door," the Swede announces. The pollster doesn't quite get this point, but plays along with him. "Get going," he says, "and no knocking on the door. Tell us something else." I stop short and take a deep breath. Both of them are peering at me. How do I always get myself into situations like this? I bet things like this never happened to Amos Oz or David Grossman. Suddenly, there's a knock on the door. Their gaze turns menacing. I shrug. It's not about me. There's nothing in my story to connect it to that knock. "Get rid of him," the pollster orders me. "Get rid of him, whoever it is."

I open the door just a crack. It's a pizza delivery guy. "Are you Keret?" he asks. "Yes," I say, "but I didn't order a pizza."

"It says here 14 Zamenhoff Street," he snaps, pointing at the printed delivery slip and pushing his way inside. "So what?" I say, "I didn't order a pizza."

"Family size," he insists, "half pineapple, half anchovy, prepaid credit card. Just give me my tip and I'm out of here."

"Are you here for a story too?" the Swede interrogates. "What story?" the pizza guy says, but it's obvious that he's lying. He's not very good at it. "Pull it out," the pollster prods. "Come on, out with the pistol already."

"I don't have a pistol," the pizza guy admits awkwardly, and draws a cleaver out from under his cardboard tray, "but I'll cut him into julienne strips unless he coughs up a story on the double."

The three of them are on the sofa, the Swede on the right, then the pizza guy, then the pollster. "I can't do it like this," I tell them. "I can't get a story going with the three of you here and your weapons and all that. Go take a walk around the block or whatever, and by the time you get back I'll have something for you."

"The asshole's going to call the police," the pollster tells the Swede. "What's he thinking, that we were born yesterday? Come on, give us one and we'll be on our way," the pizza guy begs, "a short one. Don't be so anal. Things are tough you know, unemployment, bombs, Iranians. People are thirsty for something else. What do you think brought us here? We are law-abiding citizens you know. We're desperate, man, desperate."

I clear my throat and start again, "Four people are sitting in a room. It's hot. They're bored. The air conditioner's on the blink. One of them asks for a story. The second one joins in, then the third one."

"That's not a story," the pollster protests, "that's an eyewitness report. It's exactly what's happening here right now, exactly what we're trying to run away from. Don't you go and dump reality on us like a garbage truck." I nod and start again, "A man is sitting in a room all by himself. He's lonely. He's a writer. He wants to write a story. It's been a long time since he wrote his last story and he misses it. He misses the feeling of creating something out of something. That's right, something out of something. Because something out of nothing is when you make something up out of thin air, in which case it has no value. Anybody can do that. But when it's something out of something, that means it was really there the whole time inside you, and you discover it as part of something new that's never happened before.

"The man decides to write a story about the situation. Not the political situation and not the social situation either. He decides to write a story about the human situation, the human condition, the human condition the way he's experiencing it right now, but he draws a blank. No story presents itself, because the human condition the way he's experiencing it right now doesn't seem to be worth a story, and he's just about to give up when suddenly-"

"I warned you already," the Swede interrupts me, "no knock on the door."

"I've got to," I insist. "Without a knock on the door, there's no story."

"Let him," the pizza guy says softly. "Give him some slack. You want a knock on the door? Okay, have your knock on the door, just so long as it brings us a story."

Thanks.

Now, here's a confession. The story I'm going to read next is the first story I read in English. Because when I had to read in English, I would go through all my stories and find all those words that I didn't know what they mean and I didn't know how to pronounce, and I said, "I have to find this one story that will be really easy to read." So it was this one. You just have this beast with the thorny fields, and as you know, Israelis can't pronounce TH, but apart from that, it's a piece of cake.

Breaking the Pig. Dad wouldn't buy me a Bart Simpson doll. Mom actually said yes, but Dad said I was spoiled. "Why should we, huh?" he said to mom. "Why should we buy him one? All it takes is one little squeak from him and you jump to attention." Dad said I had no respect for money, that if I didn't learn it when I was young, when would I? Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls too easily grow up to be punks who steal from convenience stores because they're used to getting whatever they want the easy way. So instead of a Bart Simpson doll, he bought me an ugly porcelain pig with a slot in its back, and now I grow up to be okay. Now, I won't be a punk.

Every morning I have to drink a cup of cocoa even though I hate it. Cocoa with skin is a shekel, without skin it's half a shekel, and if I throw up right away, I don't get anything. I put the coins into the pig's back, and when you shake it, it rattles. When the pig is full and it doesn't rattle when you shake it, I get a Bart Simpson on a skateboard. That's what dad says. That way it's educational. Actually, the pig's cute. His nose is cold when you touch it, and he smiles when you push the shekel into his back, and when you push in half a shekel too. But the nicest thing is that he smiles even when you don't. I gave him a name, I called him Margolis, after a man who used to live in our mailbox and my dad couldn't peel off his label.

Margolis isn't like my other toys. He's much calmer, without lights and springs and batteries that leak. Only, you have to watch that he doesn't jump off the table. "Margolis, be careful! You are made of porcelain," I remind him when I catch him bending down a bit to look at the floor, and he smiles at me and waits patiently for me to take him down myself. I love it when he smiles. It's only because of him that I drink the cocoa with the skin every morning so that I can push the shekel into his back and watch how his smile doesn't change at all. "I love you, Margolis," I tell him afterward. "Honest, I love you more than mom and dad, and I'll always love you, no matter what, even if you break into convenience stores, but don't even think of jumping off the table."

Yesterday, Dad came and picked Margolis up off the table, began to shake him wildly and to turn him upside down. "Be careful, Dad," I said to him, "you're giving Margolis a tummy ache." But Dad didn't stop.

"It's not making a noise anymore. You know what that means, don't you? Tomorrow you'll get a Bart Simpson on a skateboard."

"That's great, Dad," I said, "a Bart Simpson on a skateboard, great. Just stop shaking Margolis. It's making him dizzy." Dad put Margolis back on the table and went to call Mom. He came back a minute later pulling her with one hand and holding a hammer in the other. "See? I was right," he said to Mom. "Now he knows that things have value, right, Yoavi?"

"Sure, I do," I said. "Sure, but what's the hammer for?"

"It's for you," said Dad, and put the hammer in my hand. "Just be careful."

"Sure, I'll be careful," I said, and I was. But after a few minutes, Dad got fed up and said, "Go on then, break the pig."

"What?" I asked. "Break Margolis?"

"Yes, yes, Margolis, " said Dad. "Go on, break it. You've earned the Bart Simpson. You've worked hard enough for it."

Margolis smiled at me with the sad smile of a porcelain pig who knows his end is near. To hell with the Bart Simpson. Me, hit a friend on the head with a hammer? "I don't want the Bart Simpson." I gave Dad the hammer back. "Margolis is enough for me."

"You don't understand," said Dad, "it's all right, it's educational. Come on, I'll break it for you." Dad was lifting the hammer. Looking at mom's crushed eyes and Margolis's tired smile, I knew it was up to me. If I didn't do something, he was dead. "Dad," I grabbed him by the leg. "What is it, Yoavi?" said Dad, his hammer hand poised in mid-air. "May I have another shekel please?" I begged. "One more shekel to put inside him tomorrow after the cocoa, and then we'll break him, tomorrow, I promise."

"Another shekel?" Dad smiled and put the hammer down. "You see?" The boy has learned self-restraint."

"Yes, self-restraint," I said. "Tomorrow." There were tears in my throat already.

When they left the room, I hugged Margolis very tight and let the tears out. He didn't say anything, only trembled quietly in my hands. "Don't worry," I whispered in his ear, "I'll save you."

That night I waited for Dad to finish watching TV in the living room and go to bed, then I got up very quietly and sneaked out through the porch with Margolis. We walked in the dark for a long time until we reached a thorny field. "Pigs are crazy about fields," I told Margolis as I put him down on the ground, "especially fields with thorns. You like it here?" I waited for an answer, but Margolis didn't say anything. And when I touched him on the nose to say goodbye, he just gave me a sad look. He knew he'd never see me again.

When I finished my first collection of short stories, the Israeli publishing house sent me the back cover text. And [inaudible 00:19:43] it I was very disappointed because it was kind of this very general back cover text. It was only later that I discovered that publishing houses have two word files on their desktop, a back cover text for a young writer and a back cover text for established writer, and whenever they publish a book, you just print one of them. And you are either a pillar of something or a brand new voice, but it's two options.

So I called my publisher and I said to him, "Listen, I have some problem with the back cover text." And he said to me, "You know what? How about you write whatever you want, and you just fax it to us and we'll put it on the back cover. There's no problem." And I said to him, "Really?" And he said, "Really." And I said to him, "Oh, it's very considerate of you." And he said, "It has nothing to do with being considerate. It's just that everybody in the publishing house hates you and they're sick and tired of your phone calls. They really can't take it anymore. That for every comma you call people on their cell numbers and their home numbers, that we don't know how you got them all, and we just want to have this book published and not see you again. So as much as we care, you want to have a cheesecake recipe on the back cover? Send us your grandmother's favorite cheesecake recipe and we'll be fine with it," and he hung up.

So I knew I had three weeks to find myself to write the back cover text. And I wanted to write a story, but it was even shorter than my usual stories. But I wanted to say something about the way I write, and didn't have any ideas, and it was a Hanukkah. So kind of just to stop thinking about this, I decided to build myself a menorah. And I'm not very good with my hands, and I was very happy that I built this kind of very kind of '70s, retro plastic menorah. And I lit the first candle, and I saw the candle kind of catch fire, and it was a beautiful sight. And then I saw the menorah catch fire, and it was also beautiful, but kind of strange. And then I saw the table catch fire, and I thought to myself, "This isn't the way it's supposed to be." You know, it's not my first Hanukkah.

And I was very resourceful, and I kind of took buckets of water and I spilled them on the table and I put off the fire. But being a somatic, I inhaled a lot of smoke and I was taken to an emergency ward. And in the emergency ward came this very big, strong, Russian immigrant doctor, and he said to me, "Tell me what happened." And I said to him, "I built this plastic menorah." And he put a hand on my shoulder and he said, "Son, you don't have to tell me everything. Tell me just what's important." And I said to him, "I can't breathe." He said to me, "See? That was easy."

So they gave me this kind of inhalation mask, and in five minutes I started feeling better. And he had this kind of prescription book, he left it on the table. And I took a pen and I wrote this short text which I faxed to my publisher, because he wouldn't answer my phone call, and it's called Asthmatic.

When you are an asthmatic, you can't breathe. When you can't breathe, you can hardly talk. To make a sentence, all you get is the air in your lungs, which isn't much, three to six words, if that. You learn the value of words. You rummage through the jumble in your head, choose the crucial ones. Those cost you too. Let healthy people toss out whatever comes to mind the way you throw out garbage. When an asthmatic says, "I love you," and when an asthmatic says, "I love you madly," there's a difference, the difference of a word, and a word is a lot. It could be "stop" or "inhaler". It could even be "ambulance".

Thank you.

I still have to decide... I have say this, the last story I'm going to read tonight, but I still have to decide which story I've written will be the last one. I want to read the story that basically... I very rarely do commissioned stories, and not because I don't like to do commissioned stories, but because nobody commissions stories for me. But this one was really like... I do bar mitzvahs, I do requests, and this was a special request that came from my wife, because she said to me, "You wrote stories about all your friends and all your family members, and you have never wrote a story about me." And I said, "You're right, darling." And I sat down and wrote the story, and it's called Fatso.

Surprise. Of course, I was surprised. You go out with a girl, first date, second date, a restaurant here, a movie there, always just matinees. You start sleeping together, the sex is dynamite, and pretty soon there's feeling too. And then one day she arrives so weepy, and you hug her and tell her to take it easy, that everything's okay, but she says she can't stand it anymore, she has this secret. Not just a secret, something really awful, a curse, something she's been wanting to tell you the whole time, but she didn't have the guts. This thing, it's been weighing down on her like a ton of bricks, and now she's got to tell you, she's simply got to. But she knows that as soon as she does, you will leave her, and you'd be absolutely right to. And just after that she starts crying all over again.

"I won't leave you," you tell her, "I won't. I love you." You may seem a little loose or you may look a little upset, but you're not. And even if you are, it's about her crying, not about her secret. You know by now that the secrets that always makes a woman fall into pieces are usually something along the lines of doing it with an animal or with a Mormon or with someone who paid her for it. "I'm a whore," they always wind up saying. And you hug them and say, "No, you're not. You are not," or, "Shh," if they don't stop.

"It's something really terrible," she insists, as if she's picked up on how nonchalant you are about it even though you've tried to hide it. "In the pit of your stomach, it may sound terrible," you tell her, "but that's mostly because of the acoustics. Soon as you let it out, it won't seem nearly as bad, you'll see," and she almost believes it. She hesitates a minute and then asks, "What if I told you that at night I turn into a heavy, hairy man with no neck, with a gold ring on his pinky? Would you still love me?" And you tell her, of course you would. What else can you say, that you wouldn't? She's simply trying to test you to see whether you love her unconditionally, and you've always been a winner at tests.

And sure enough, as soon as you say it, she melts, and you fuck right there in the living room. And afterwards, you lie there holding each other tight, and she cries because she's so relieved, and you cry too. Go figure it out. And unlike all the other times, she doesn't get up and leave, she stays there and falls asleep. And you lie awake looking at her beautiful body, at the sunset outside, at the moon appearing as if out of nowhere, and the silvery light flickering over her body, stroking the hair on her back. And within less than five minutes, you find yourself lying next to this guy, this short, fat guy.

And the guy gets up and smiles at you and dresses awkwardly. He leaves the room, and you follow him spellbound. He's in the den now, with thick fingers, fiddling with the remote, zapping through the sport channels. Championship soccer, when they miss a pass, he curses the TV; when they score, he gets up and does this little victory dance. After the game, he tells you that his throat is dry and his stomach is growling. He could really use a beer and a nice hunk of meat, well done if possible, and with lots of onion rings, but he'll settle for some pork chops too. So you get in the car and take him to this restaurant that he knows about.

This new twist has you worried, it really does, but you have no idea what to do about it. Your command and control centers are down. You shift gears at the exit in a daze. He's right there beside you in the passenger seat, tapping that gold-ringed pinky of his. At the next intersection, he rolls down his window, winks at you, and yells at this girl who's trying to summon a ride, "Hey, baby, want to play nanny goat and ride in the back?"

Later, the two of you are packing the steak and the chops and the onion rings till you're about to explode, and he enjoys every bite and laughs like a baby. And all the time you keep telling yourself, "It's got to be a dream," a bizarre dream, yes, but definitely one that you snap out of in any minute. On the way back, you ask him where to let him off and he pretends not to hear you, but he looks despondent so you wind up taking him back home with you. "It's almost 3:00 AM. I'm going to hit the sack," you tell him, and he waves to you and stays in the bean bag staring at the fashion channel. You wake up the next morning exhausted and with a slight stomachache, and there she is in the living room, still dozing, but by the time you've had your shower, she's up. She hugs you guilty, and you're too embarrassed to say anything.

Time goes by and you're still together. The sex just gets better and better. She's not so young anymore, and neither are you, and suddenly you find yourself talking about the baby. And at night, you and the fatso guy hit the town like you've never done before in your life. He takes you to restaurants and bars you didn't even know existed, and you dance on the tables together and break plates like there's no tomorrow. He's really nice, the fatso guy, a little crass, especially with women, sometimes coming out with things that makes you just want to die. But other than that, he's great fun to be with. When you first met him, you didn't give a damn about soccer, but now you know every team, and whenever one of your favorites wins, you feel like you've made a wish and it's come true, which is a pretty exceptional feeling for someone like you, who oddly knows what he wants most of the time.

And so it goes, every night you fall asleep with him struggling to stay awake for the Argentinian finals, and in the morning, there she is, the beautiful, forgiving woman that you also love till it hurts. Thank you.

I just want to say that I think that from probably all the reading events that I've had in my life, I think this was the most stressing one. And it has nothing to do with you, so you don't have to feel guilty. It just have to do with the fact that you know that George Saunders is going to read after me, and he's a great hero. And my wife once told me, "Who is this George Saunders?" Because she heard me speaking about him, she never read anything by him, and she wasn't as [inaudible 00:31:58] as me to meet him. And I said to her, "If they ever kind of shoot a commercial for humanity, he should star in it." So, thank you.

Dr. Bonnie Culver:

I am Bonnie Culver from Wilkes University, and I'm pleased to introduce George Saunders this evening, author of three short collections, Pastoralia, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and In Persuasion Nation, which was a finalist for The Story Prize best collection. Pastoralia and CivilWarLand were both New York Times Notable Book awards as well, and has been included in the O Henry and short story collections in the New Yorker, GQ, and Harper's.

Reviewers have compared his work to that of satirists and stylists such as Thomas Pynchon, Flannery O'Connor, Nathanael West, Raymond Chandler, Swift, Mark Twain, Vonnegut with a dose of Dr. Seuss, and Walt Disney on acid. He's a savage satirist with a sentimental streak. Who delineates the dark underbelly of the American dream, the losses, delusions. And terrors suffered by the lonely, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, and the plain unlucky.

The best of literature draws us into that world to which we feel there are no solutions, and it's not only the best of dystopian literature that does that, it's the best of literature. In 2006, George Saunders was awarded the MacArthur Award, the Genius Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Currently, he teaches at Syracuse University's Creative Writing Program. Now, George Saunders.

George Saunders:

Thank you, Bonnie. And Etgar, thank you, man. You're like my more articulate, better looking twin. You can be in the commercial for humanity together, and it still won't help, we'll still suck. Let me find the story here. This is actually my first AWP, and it's kind of trippy. It's like 8,000 of us all in one place. You know what I'm saying? All the articulate people of the world have come here, and we're going to form our own nation, secede from the union and live in peace and harmony, until the bitter infighting begins, and over tiny aesthetic differences. Our flag could be like that first page of the Guggenheim application. What'd it say? No. All right.

Okay, so this is just a story called Victory Lap. Three days shy of her 15th birthday, Alison Pope paused at the top of the stairs. Say the staircase was marble. Say she descended and all heads turned. Where was Special One? Approaching now, bowing slightly, he exclaimed, "How can so much grace be contained in one small package?" Oops, had he said small package and then just stood there, broad, prince-like face totally bland of expression? Poor thing. Sorry, no way, down he went, he was definitely not Special One.

What about this guy behind Mr. Small Package, standing near the home entertainment center, with a thick neck of farmer integrity yet tender ample lips who, placing one hand on the small of her back whispered, "Dreadfully sorry you had to endure that bit about the small package just now. Let us go stand on the moon, uh, uh, in, in the moon, in, in the moonlight." Had he said, "Let us go stand on the moon"? If so, she would have to be like... And if no wry acknowledgement was forthcoming, be like, "Uh, I'm not exactly dressed for standing on the moon, which, as I understand it, it's super cold."

Come on, guys. She couldn't keep treading gracefully in this marble stairwell in her mind forever. That dear old white-hair in the tiara was getting all like, "Why are those supposed princes making that darling girl march in place ad nausea?" Plus, she had a recital tonight and had to go fetch her tights from the dryer. Egads! One found oneself still standing at the top of the stairs. Do the thing where, facing upstairs, hand on railing, you hop down the stairs one at a time, which was getting a lot harder lately due to someone's feet were getting longer every day it seemed like. Pas de chat, pas de chat, changement, changement. Hop over a thin metal thingy separating hallway tile from living room rug, curtsy to self in entryway mirror. Come on mom, get here. We do not wish to be castigated by Ms. Callow again in the wings.

Although, actually, she loved Ms. C. So strict! Also loved the other girls in class and the girls from school, loved them. Everyone was so nice. Plus the boys at her school, plus the teachers at her school, all of them were doing their best. Actually, she loved her whole town, that adorable grocer spraying his lettuce, Pastor Carol with her large comfortable butt, the chubby postman gesticulating with his padded envelopes. It had once been a mill town. Wasn't that crazy? What did that even mean? Also, she loved her house. Across the creek was the Russian church. So ethnic! That onion dome had loomed in her window since her Pooh footy days. Also loved Gladsong Drive. Every House on Gladsong was a Corona del Mar. That was amazing! If you had a friend on Gladsong, you already knew where everything was in his or her home.

Jeté, jeté, rond de jambe, pas de bourrée. On a happy whim do front roll, hop to your feet, kiss the picture of mom and dad taken at Penney's back in the Stone Ages when you were that little cutie right there, kiss, with a hair bow bigger than all outdoors. Sometimes, feeling happy like this, she imagined a baby deer trembling in the woods.

"Where's your mama, little guy?"

"I don't know," the deer said in the voice of Heather's little sister Becca.

"Are you afraid?" she asked it. "Are you hungry? Do you want me to hold you?"

"Okay," the baby deer said.

And here came the hunter now, dragging the deer's mother by the antlers. Her guts were completely splayed. Geez, that was nice. She covered the baby's eyes and was like, "Don't you have anything better to do, Dank Hunter, than kill this baby's mom? You seem like a nice enough guy."

"Is my mom killed?" the baby said in Becca's voice.

"No, no," she said, "this gentleman was just leaving."

The hunter, captivated by her beauty, toffed or doffed his cap, and, going down on one knee, said, "If I could will life back into this fawn, I would do so, in hopes you might defer one tender kiss upon our elderly forehead."

"Go," she said. "Only, for your task of penance, do not eat her. Lay her out in a field of clover, with roses strewn about her, and bestow a choir to softly sing of her foul end."

"Lay who out?" the baby deer said.

"No one," she said. "Nevermind. Stop asking so many questions."

Pas de chat, pas de chat, changement, changement. She felt hopeful that Special One would hail from far away. The local boys possessed a certain je ne sais quoi, which, to tell the truth, she was not très crazy about, such as actually named their own nuts. And she had overheard that. And aspired to work for CountyPower because the work shirts were awesome and you got them for free. So ixnay on the local boys. A special ixnay on Matt Drey, owner of the largest mouth in the land. Kissing him last night at the pep rally had been like kissing an underpass. Scary! Kissing Matt was like, suddenly this cow in a sweater is bearing down on you, who will not take no for an answer, and his huge cow head is being flooded by chemicals that are drowning out what little powers of reason Matt actually did have.

What she liked was being in charge of her, her body, her mind, her thoughts, her career, her future. That was what she liked. So be it. We might have a slight snack, un petit repas. Was she special? Did she consider herself special? Oh gosh, she didn't know. In the history of the world, many had been more special than her. Helen Keller had been awesome. Mother Teresa was amazing. Mrs. Roosevelt was quite chipper in spite of her husband, who was handicapped, which, in addition, she had been gay, with those big old teeth, long before such time as being gay and First Lady was even conceptual.

She, Alison, cannot hope to compete in the category of those ladies, not yet anyway. There was so much she didn't know, like how to change the oil, or even check the oil, or how to open the hood, how to bake brownies. That was embarrassing actually, being a girl and all. And what was a mortgage? Did it come with the house? When you breastfed, did you have to push the milk out?

Egads! Who was this wan figure, visible through the living room window, trotting up Gladsong Drive? Kyle Boot, palest kid in all the land, still dressed in his weird cross-country running toggles? Poor thing. He looked like a skeleton with a mullet. Were those cross-country shorts from the Charlie's Angels days or quoi. How could he run so well when he seemed to have literally no muscles? Every day he ran home like this, shirtless with his backpack on, and hit the remote from down by the Fungs' and scooted into his garage without breaking stride. You almost had to admire the poor goof.

They'd grown up together, been little beaners in that mutual sandbox down by the creek. Hadn't they bathed together when wee or some such crud? She hoped that never got out because, in terms of friends, Kyle was basically down to Tasso Slavko, who walked leaning way backward and was always retrieving things from between his teeth, announcing the name of the retrieved thing in Greek, and then re-eating it. Kyle's mom and dad didn't let him do squat. He had to call home if the movie in World Culture might show bare boobs. Each of the items in his lunchbox was clearly labeled.

Pas de bourrée, and curtsy. Pour quantity of Cheez Doodles into compartmentalized old-school Tupperware dealie. Thanks, mom, thanks, dad, your kitchen rocks. Shake Tupperware dealie back and forth like panning for gold, then offer to us some imaginary poor gathered around, "Please enjoy. Is there anything else I can do for you folks?"

"You've already done enough, Alison, by even deigning to speak to us."

"That is so not true. Don't you understand, all people deserve respect? Each of us is a rainbow."

"Uh, really? Look at this big open sore on my poor shriveled flank."

"Allow me to fetch you some Vaseline."

"That would be much appreciated. This thing kills."

But as far as that rainbow idea? She believed that. People were amazing. Mom was awesome, dad was awesome. Her teachers worked so hard and had kids of their own, and some were even getting divorced, such as Mrs. Dees, but still always took time for their students. What she found especially inspiring about Mrs. Dees was that, even though Mr. Dees was cheating on Mrs. Dees with the lady who ran the bowling alley, Mrs. Dees was still teaching the best course ever in ethics, posing such questions as can goodness win, or do good people always get shafted, evil being more reckless? That last bit seemed to be Mrs. Dees taking a shot at the bowling alley gal. But seriously, is life fun or scary? Are people good or bad? On the one hand, that clip of those gauntish pale bodies being steamrolled while fat German ladies looked on chomping gum. On the other hand, sometimes rural folks, even if their particular farms were on hills, stayed up late filling sandbags.

In their straw poll she had voted for people being good and life being fun, with Mrs. Dees giving her a pitying glance as she stated her views. "To do good," she thought, "you just have to decide to do good. You have to be brave. You have to stand up for what's right." At that last, Mrs. Dees had made this kind of groan. Which is fine, Mrs. Dees had a lot of pain in her life yet, interestingly, still obviously found something fun about life and good about people, because otherwise, why sometimes stay up so late grading you come in the next day all exhausted, blouse on backward, having messed it up in the early morning dark, you dear discombobulated thing?

Here came a knock on the door. Backdoor, interesting. Who could it be? Father Dmitri from across the way? UPS? FedEx with un petit check pour Papa? Jeté, jeté, rond de jambe, pas de bourrée, open door, and here was a man she didn't know, a quite huge fellow in one of those meter reader vests. Something told her to step back in, slam the door, but that seemed rude. Instead, she froze, smiled, did eyebrow raise to indicate, "May I help you?"

Okay.

Next door, Kyle Boot dashed through the garage into the living area, where the big clock-like wooden indicator was set at All Out. Other choices included Mom and Dad Out, Mom Out, Dad Out, Kyle Out, Mom and Kyle Out, Dad and Kyle Out, and All In. Why did they even need All In? Wouldn't they know it when they were all in? Would he like to ask Dad about that who, in his excellent totally silent downstairs workshop had designed and built the family status indicator? Ha. Ha ha. On the kitchen island was a work notice, "Scout, new geode on deck. Place in yard per included drawing. No goofing. Rake area first, put down plastic as I have shown you, and then lay in white rock. This geode expensive. Please take seriously. No reason this should not be done by the time I get home. This is worth five (5) work points."

Gar, Dad, do you honestly feel it fair that I should have to slave in the yard until dark after a rigorous cross-country practice that included 16 440s, eight 880s, a mile-for-time, a kajillion Drake sprints, and a five-mile Indian relay?

"Shoes off, Mister."

Yoinks, too late. He's already at the TV and had left an incriminating trail of microclods. Way verboten. Could the microclods be hand- plucked? Although, problem, if he went back to hand-pluck the microclods, he'd leave an incriminating new trail of microclods. He took off his shoes and stood mentally rehearsing a little show he liked to call What If... Right Now? What if they came home right now?

"It's a funny story, Dad. I came in thoughtlessly, then realized what I'd done. I guess when I think about it, what I'm happy about is how quickly I self-corrected. But the reason I came in so thoughtlessly was I wanted to get right to work, Dad, per your note."

He raced in his socks to the garage, threw his shoes into the garage, ran for the vacuum, vacuumed up the microclods and realized, holy golly, he'd thrown his shoes into the garage rather than placing them on the shoe sheet as required, toes facing away from the door for ease of donnage later. He stepped into the garage, placed his shoes on the shoe sheet, stepped back inside. "Uh, Scout," Dad said in his head, "has anybody ever told you that even the most neatly maintained garage is going to have some oil on its floor, which is now on your socks, being tracked all over the tan Berber?" Oh gar, his ass was grass. But no, celebrate good times, come on, no oil stain on the rug.

He tore off his socks. It was absolutely verboten for him to be in the main living area barefoot. Mom and dad coming home to find him Tarzan-ing around like some sort of white trasher would not be the least fucking bit-

"Swearing in your head?" Dad said in his head. "Step up, Scout, be a man. If you want to swear, swear aloud."

"I don't want to swear aloud."

"Then don't swear in your head."

Mom and Dad would be heartsick if they could hear the swearing he sometimes did in his head, such as crap, cunt, shit turd, dick in the ear, butt creamery. Why couldn't he stop doing that? They thought so highly of him, sending weekly braggy emails to both sets of grandparents such as, "Kyle's been super busy keeping up his grades while running varsity cross-country, though still a sophomore, while setting aside a little time each day to manufacture such humdingers as cunt-swoggle rear-fuck." What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he be grateful for all that Mom and Dad did for him instead of cornhole the ear-cunt, flake-fuck the pale vestige with a proddering dick-knee?

You could always clear the mind with a hard pinch on your own minimal love handle. Ouch! Hey, today was Tuesday, major treat day. The five (5) new work points for placing the geode plus his existing two work points totaled seven work points, which, added to his eight accrued usual chore points, made 15 total treat points, which could garner him a major treat, for example, two handfuls of yogurt covered raisins plus 20 free choice TV minutes, although the particular show would have to be negotiated with Dad at time of cash-in.

"Uh, one thing you will not be watching, Scout, is America's Most Outspoken Dirt Bikers."

"Whatever. Whatever, Dad."

"Oh, really, Scout, whatever? Will it really be whatever when I take away all your treat points, and force you to quit cross-country, as I have several times threatened to do if a little more cheerful obedience wasn't forthcoming?"

"No, no, no, I don't want to quit that. Please, I'm good at it. You'll see, first meet. Even Matt Drey said-"

"And who is Matt Dre, some ape on the football team?"

"Yes."

"Is his word law?"

"No."

"What did he say?"

"Little shit can run."

"Nice talk, Scout, ape talk. Anyway, you may not make it to the first meet; your ego seems to be overflowing its banks. And why? Because you can jog? Anyone can jog. Beasts of the field can jog."

"I'm not quitting. Anal-cock, shitbird, rectum-fritz! Please, I'm begging you. It's the only thing I'm decent at. Mom, if he makes me quit, I swear to God, I'll-"

"Drama doesn't suit you, beloved only."

"If you want the privilege of competing in a team sport, Scout, show us that you can live within our perfectly reasonable system of directives designed to benefit you."

Hello, a van had just pulled up in the St. Mikhail's parking lot. Kyle walked in a controlled, gentlemanly manner to the kitchen counter. On the counter was Kyle's traffic log, which served the dual purpose of, one, buttressing Dad's argument that Father Dmitri should build a soundproof retaining wall and, two, constituting a dataset for a possible science fair project for him, Kyle, entitled by Dad Correlation of Church Parking Lot Volume versus Day of Week, with Ancillary Investigation of Sunday Volume Throughout Year.

Smiling agreeably, as if he enjoyed filling out the log, Kyle very legibly filled out the log. Vehicle: van, Color: gray, Make: Chevy, Year: unknown. A guy got out of the van, one of the usual Rooskies. Rooskies was in allowed slang, also dang it, also holy golly, also crapper. The Rooskie was wearing a jean jacket over a hoodie, which, in Kyle's experience, was pretty much usual church wear for the Rooskies, who sometimes came directly over from Jiffy Lupe still wearing coveralls. Under Vehicle Driver, he wrote, "Probable parishioner." That sucked; stank, rather. The guy being a stranger, he, Kyle, now had to stay inside until the stranger left the neighborhood, which totally futzed up his geode placing. He'd be out here until midnight. What a detriment.

The guy put on a DayGlo vest. Ah, dude was a meter reader. The meter reader looked left, then right, leaped across the creek, entered the Pope backyard, passed between the soccer ball rebounder and the in-ground pool, then knocked on the Pope door. Good leap there, Boris. The door swung open. Alison. Kyle's heart was singing. He'd always thought that was just a phrase. Alison was like a national treasure. In the dictionary under "beauty", there should be a picture of her in that jean skort. Although, lately she didn't seem to like him all that much.

Now she stepped across her deck so the meter reader could show her something, something electrical wrong on the roof? The guy seemed eager to show her. Actually, the guy had her by the wrist and was like tugging. That was weird. Wasn't it? Nothing had ever been weird around here before, so probably it was fine. Probably the guy was just a really new meter reader?

Somehow Kyle felt like stepping out onto the deck. He stepped out. The guy froze. Alison's eyes were scared-horse eyes. The guy cleared his throat, turned slightly to let Kyle see something, a knife. That meter reader had a knife? "Here's what you're doing," the guy said, "standing right there until we leave. Move a muscle, I knife her in the heart, I swear to God. Got it?" Kyle's mouth was so spitless all he could do was make his mouth do the shape it normally did when saying yes. Now, they were crossing the yard. Alison threw herself to the ground, the guy hauled her up. She threw herself down, he hauled her up. It was odd seeing Alison tossed like a ragdoll in the sanctuary of the perfect yard her dad had made for her. She threw herself down. The guy hissed something and she rose, suddenly docile.

In his chest Kyle felt the many directives, major and minor, he was right now violating. He was on the deck shoeless, on the deck shirtless, was outside when a stranger was near, had just engaged with that stranger. Last week, Sean Ball had brought a wig to school to more effectively mimic the way Bev Mirren chewed her hair when nervous. Kyle had briefly considered intervening. At evening meeting, mom had said that she considered Kyle's decision not to intervene judicious. Dad had said, "That was none of your business. You could have been badly hurt." Mom had said, "Think of all the resources we've invested in you, beloved only." And Dad had said, "I know we sometimes strike you as strict, but you are literally all we have."

They were at the soccer ball rebounder now, Alison's arm up behind her back. She was making a low, repetitive sound of denial, like she was trying to invent a noise that would adequately communicate her feelings about what she'd just this instant realized was going to happen to her. He was a kid. There was nothing he could do. In his chest he felt the lush release of pressure that always resulted when he submitted to a directive. There at his feet was the geode. He should just look at that until they were gone. It was a great one, maybe the greatest one ever. The crystals at the cutaway glistened in the sun. It would look nice in the yard once he'd placed it. He'd place it once they were gone. Dad would be impressed that even after what had occurred he'd remembered to place the geode.

"That's the ticket, Scout."

"We are well pleased, beloved only."

"Super job, Scout."

Holy crap, it was happening. She was marching along, all meek, like the trooper he'd known she'd be. He'd had her in mind since the baptism of What's-his-name, Sergei's kid, at the Russian church. She'd been standing in the yard, her dad or some such taking her picture. He'd been like, "Hello, Betty." Kenny had been like, "A little young, bro." He'd been like, "For you, grandpa."

When you studied history, the history of culture, you saw your own individual time as hidebound. There were various theories of acquiescence. In Bible days, a king might ride through a field and go, "That one," and she would be brought unto him and they would duly be betrothed. And if she gave birth unto a son, super, bring out the streamers, she was a keeper. Was she, that first night, digging it? Probably not. Was she shaking like a leaf? Didn't matter. What mattered was offspring and the furtherance of the lineage, plus the exaltation of the king, which resulted in righteous kingly power.

Here was the creek. He marched her right through. The following bullet points remained in the decision matrix: take to side van door, shove in, follow in, tape wrists/mouth, hook to chain, make speech. He had to speech down cold, had practiced at both in his head and on the recorder, "Calm your heart, darling. I know you're scared, because you don't know me yet and didn't expect this today, but give me a chance and you will see, we will fly high. See, I'm putting a knife right over here, and I don't expect I'll have to use it, right?"

If she wouldn't get in the van, punch hard in gut, then pick up, carry to side van door, throw in, tape wrists/mouth, hook to chain, make speech, etc., etc. "Stop, pause," he said. The gal stopped. Fuck's sake, the side door of the van was locked. How undisciplined was that? Ensuring that the van door was unlocked was clearly indicated on the pre-mission matrix.

Melvin appeared in his mind. On Melvin's face was the look of hot disappointment that had always preceded an ass whooping, which had always preceded that other thing. "Put up your hands," Melvin said, "defend yourself." True, true, a little error there, should have double checked the pre-mission matrix. No biggie. Joy, not fear. Melvin was dead 15 years, mom dead 12.

The little bitch was turned around now, looking back at the house. That willfulness wouldn't stand. That was going to get nipped in the bud. He'd have to remember to hurt her early, establish a baseline. "Turn the fuck around," he said. She turned around. He unlocked the door, swung it open. Moment of truth. If she got in and let him use the tape, they were home free.

He'd picked out a place in Sackett, big-ass cornfield, dirt road leading in. If fuck-wise it went good, they'd pick up the freeway from there, basically steal the van. It was Kenny's van. He'd borrowed it for the day. Ah, screw Kenny. Kenny had once called him stupid. Too bad, Kenny, that remark just cost you one van. If fuck-wise it went bad and she didn't properly arouse him, he'd abort the activity, truncate the subject, heave the thing out, clean van as necessary, go buy corn, return van to Kenny and say, "Hey, bro, here's a shitload of corn. Thanks for the van. I never could have bought a suitable quantity of corn in my car," then lay low, watch the papers like he'd done with the non-arousing redhead out in-

The gal gave an imploring look like, "Please don't." Was this a good time to give her one in the gut, knock the wind out of her sails? It was. He did.

The geode was beautiful. What a beautiful geode. What made it beautiful? What were the principle characteristics of a beautiful geode? Come on, think. Come on, concentrate.

"She'll recover in time, beloved only."

"None of our affair, Scout."

"We're amazed by your good judgment, beloved only."

Dimly he noted that Alison had been punched. Eyes on the geode, he heard the little "oof". His heart dropped at the thought of what he was letting happen. They'd used goldfish snacks as coins. They'd made bridges out of rocks down by the creek back in the day. Oh God, he should have never stepped outside. Once they were gone, he'd just go back in, pretend he'd never stepped out, make the model railroad town, still be making it when Mom and Dad got home. When eventually someone told him about it, he'd make a certain face. Already on his face he could feel the face he'd make like, "What? Alison raped, killed? Oh, God! Raped and killed while I innocently made my railroad town, sitting cross-legged and unaware on the floor, like a tiny little..."

No, no, no, no, no. They'd be gone soon. Then he could go inside, call 911. Although, then everyone would know he'd done nothing. All his future life would be bad. Forever he'd be the kid who'd done nothing. Besides, calling wouldn't do any good, they'd be long gone. The parkway was just across Featherstone, with like a million arteries and cloverleafs or whatever sprouting out of it. So that was that. In he'd go, as soon as they left. "Leave, leave, leave," he thought, "so I can go inside, forget this ever-"

And then he was running across the lawn. Oh God, what was he doing? What was he doing? Jesus, shit, the directives he was violating! Running in the yard, bad for the sod; transporting a geode without its protective wrapping; hopping the fence, which stressed the fence, which had cost a pretty penny; leaving the yard; leaving the yard barefoot; entering the secondary area without permission; entering the creek barefoot, broken glass, dangerous microorganisms. And not only that, oh God, suddenly he saw that what this giddy part of himself intended, which was to violate a directive, so major and absolute that it wasn't even a directive since you didn't need a directive to know how totally verboten it was.

He burst out of the creek, the guy still not turning, and let the geode fly into his head, which seemed to emit a weird edge-seep of blood even before the skull visibly indented and the guy sat right on his ass. Yes! Score! It was fun! Fun dominating a grownup! Fun using the most dazzling gazelle-like leg speed ever seen in the history of mankind to dash soundlessly across space and master this huge galoot who otherwise right now would be... What if he hadn't? God, what if he hadn't?

He imagined the guy bending Alison in two like a pale garment bag while pulling her hair and thrusting bluntly as he, Kyle, sat cowed and obedient, a tiny railroad viaduct grasped in his pathetic babyish... Jesus! He skipped over and hurled the geode through the windshield of the van, which imploded, producing an inward rain of glass shards that made the sound of thousands of tiny bamboo wind chimes. He scrambled up the hood of the van, retrieved the geode.

"Really? Really? You were going to ruin her life, ruin my life, you cunt-probe, dick-munch, ass-gashing animal? Who's bossing who now, gash-ass, jizz-lips, turd-munch?" He'd never felt so strong, angry, wild. "Who's the man? Who's your daddy?" What else must he do to ensure that animal did no further harm? "You still moving, freak? Got a plan, stroke-dick? Want a skull gash on top of your existing skull gash, big man? You think I won't? You think I-"

"Well, easy, Scout, you're out of control."

"Slow your motor down, beloved only."

"Quiet. I'm the boss of me."

Fuck! What the hell? What was he doing on the ground? Had he tripped? Did someone wonk him? Did a branch fall? God damn! He touched his head, his hand came away bloody. The beanpole kid was bending to pick something up. A rock? Why was that kid off his porch? Where was the knife? Where was the gal? Crab-crawling towards the creek, flying across her yard, going into her house. Fuck it, everything was fucked. Better hit the road. With what, his good looks? He had $8 total. Ah, Christ, now the kid had smashed the windshield with the rock. Kenny was not going to like that one bit.

He tried to stand, but couldn't; the blood was just pouring out. He was not going to jail again, no way. He'd slid his wrist. Where was the knife? He'd stab himself in the chest. That had nobility. Then the people would know his name. Which of them had the balls to Samurai themselves with a knife in the chest? None, nobody. Go ahead, pussy, do it. No, the king does not take his own life. The superior man silently accepts the mindless rebuke of the rabble, waits to rise and fight anew. Plus, he had no idea where the knife even was. Well, he didn't need it. He'd crawl into the woods, kill something with his bare hands, make a trap from some grass. Ugh. Was he going to barf? There, he had, right on his lap.

"Figures you'd blow the simplest thing," Melvin said.

"Melvin, God, can't you see my head is bleeding so bad?"

"A kid did it to you. You're a joke. You got fucked by a kid."

Oh, sirens, perfect. Well, it was a sad day for the cops. He'd have to fight him hand to hand. He'd sit until the last moment, watching them draw near, doing a silent death mantra that would centralize all his life power in his fists. He sat thinking about his fists. They were huge granite boulders. They were a pit bull each. He tried to get up. Somehow his legs weren't working. Ugh. He hoped the cops would get here soon. His head really hurt. When he touched up there, things moved, almost like he was wearing a Gore cap. He was going to need a bunch of stitches. He hoped it wouldn't hurt too much. Probably it would though.

Where was that beanpole kid? Oh, here he was, looming over him now, blocking out the sun, rock held high, yelling something, but he couldn't tell what because of the ringing in his ears. Then he saw that the kid was going to bring the rock down. He closed his eyes and waited and was not at peace at all, but instead felt the beginnings of a terrible dread welling up inside him. And if that dread kept growing at the current rate, he realized in a flash of insight, there was a name for the place he would be then, and it was Hell.

Alison stood at the kitchen window. She had peed herself, which was fine. People did that when super scared. She'd noticed it while making the call. Her hands had been shaking so bad. They still were. One leg was doing the Thumper thing. God, the things he'd said to her. He'd punched her. He'd pinched her. The mark on her arm was black. How could Kyle still be out there? But there he was, in those comical shorts, so confident he was goofing around, hands clenched over his head like a boxer from some cute alt universe where a kid that skinny could actually win a fight against a guy with a knife.

Wait. His hands weren't clenched. He was holding that rock, shouting something down at the guy, who was on his knees like the blindfolded Chinese fellow in that video they'd seen in history about to get sword-killed by a formal dude in a helmet. "Kyle, don't," she whispered. For months afterwards, she had nightmares in which Kyle brought the rock down. She was on the deck trying to scream his name, but nothing was coming out. Down came the rock, then the guy had no head. The blow just literally dissolved his head, then his body tumped over and Kyle turned to her wi