A Story About Ice on the Lake

Ice on the lake - that’s all I can see. As the car rumbles up Lakeshore Drive I’m staring. I wonder if I am ready for winter after five years. The first time it learned how to dress for it. Now I’m so bundled that I’m sweating. Can I already have forgot? I loosen my scarf, ditch my gloves in my pocket and unbutton the top of my coat. The cab driver honks at the packed road and dodges around a minivan. I catch myself from falling over.

It’s only January. I missed Autumn. I remember when I first moved to Chicago I was so excited to have a real fall, with the evenings that were perfect for sweaters and hot chocolate. Each progressive year, the falling leaves only reminded me of snow, which reminded me of the grey sludge the plows would pile on the sidewalks. Before long I’d be huddled under the heat lamps on the EL platform, wondering if I actually needed to see my friends tonight and maybe it would be better to skip my birthday this year and just stay home. Maybe there was an upside that I was forgetting. My hands were feeling raw so I slipped my gloves back on and tightened my scarf.

We passed a sign reading Division. My mental map of the city had faded. I got Division mixed up with Diversity, though I was pretty sure where Damian was. If we got to Lawrence I’d be sure. Although I don’t know if I was going that far. Traffic has come to a creep. Suddenly my whole word feels small - me in the taxi, ice on the right, city on the left.

A Story About Frankie

Frankie thinks he can see through walls if he looks long enough. He’d practice at the shop on his breaks until the other guys started making fun of him. During lunch he’s taken to folding the newspaper into quarters and pretending to do the crossword. All the while he’s looking over the top of it, fixed on the other end of the room.

I asked him about it before he got all secretive. He was taking a smoke break, but just letting the cigarette turn to ash while he stared. Why walls? I said. Frankie jumped. A guy my size, Frankie’s the only one I can sneak up on. What? He said. He looked flustered. May it’s because those were the first words we ever spoke to each other.

-I heard you’re trying to seeing through walls.

Frankie shrugs. I go on.

-Why not try something easier first, like paper or cardboard or something.

One of the other guys laughs.

-It doesn’t work that way, he says. It’s got to do with the molecules, and- I read this thing about walls and how the molecules and there’s like this probability and if things align right, and like it said, just because something is improbable, don’t make it impossible. You know? …It was explained better in this thing I read.

Jim caught the tail end of this answer. Oh yeah yeah yeah, he says, cigarette in mouth. He lights, puffs and continues. Makes perfect sense. I heard this guy who found a way to see through walls… it’s called a window.

Frankie drops his ashy cigarette and stomps it out with his boot. He leaves before I can ask him what I really want to know – What wall does he want to see through?

A Story About a Litter

Mollie was hit by a car. Mildred got punched by a porcupine. Mumford wandered off into the woods on a dark cold evening. The little one disappeared before we even had names.

My brothers and sisters and me had a misshapen start. Most of us don’t come into this world between two dumpsters behind Al’s Pizza Palace. For those weeks our world was that restaurant, the parking lot and the woods with a single road cutting through it. At night the world ended where the light didn’t reach. Beyond the light were sounds that threatened to be more than sounds all of a sudden.

We were christened by two humans who threw out the trash and smoked cigarettes and kissed each other. Mother snarled whenever they came near.

XXX. A Good Book

He had a plank of wood the size of a good book. With a couple nails he added another the same size. By the time he added a third plank he could start to see the box. He imagined all the things the he might hide inside. In the whole world this would be a space that was only his. All the things that he would accumulate over his life would find sanctuary, rocks and useful bits of string, cards with writing on it, a pencil with his name, a page from a book. Each thing carrying all the memories he couldn’t hold himself. He spins the object in his hand, runs fingertips over it’s grooves, breaths in what it knows and he suddenly be back in time, at all the stars in the constellations of his life.

A week before he dies he’ll take this rough and tumble box, digs a hole next to the biggest tree in the yard. Half a century later, when the oak is manually uprooted out of fears that it’ll crash on the house, his great-grand niece is the one who points out the box before it is destroyed by machinery. In the dying light of a late summer evening she places each item on her bedroom floor. Each thing in it’s own place, with it’s own space around it. One object for each year of life. She studies the largeness of these tiny things, trying to puzzle out what it means. She begins with a wrist watch, taking it up and turning it over. On the easy breeze she can smell freshly cut grass, which reminds her of a wool picnic blanket and the taste of lemonade. As she closes her eyes she can hear the faint pop of fireworks in the distance. When she opens her eyes it is night time. It’s been so for hours.

A Story About Risk

Felix had a long neck. He kept his chin tucked, but I could still tell. He sat in the back of class and picked his nose when he thought no one was looking. When I saw him I’d nudge Eric E. who would kick Eric R. We’d all laugh. Together we were known as the three Erics. I don’t know when they stopped calling us that. By middle school maybe.

Eric Rothschild was hit by a drunk driver only a week after he got his license. Felix had been in the car with him. All I could think was, When did he become friends with that nose-picker? My girlfriend says I’m too prone to nostalgia. But I don’t think that’s what made me visit Felix in the hospital.

The elevator doors opened and it smelled like chemical vomit. The nurse at the front had given me the number 204 which I wrote on my hand. I followed the arrows and tried not to make eye contact. Inside-