Sean

Sean didn't know why he was taking his anger out on his chicken nuggets. While it's true they weren't crispy as implied on the container, the greasy hot smell warmed him the second his mom set the bag in his lap. Unfortunately, so did nausea.  If only Thalia had come. Or if he could invite Kai.  Kai stays over at dad's, what's the big deal?  Why do the rules have to change just because mom had a meltdown.  Sean's feeling pretty melty himself, lately. Why can't I run away from home?  Of course, he knew the answer was a lack of job training.  There's not a big market for people to solve crosswords or build replicas of famous buildings out of legos, or analyze the Star Wars saga.  Not that there are legos or crosswords or Star Wars at mom's.  You know what there are? Fake heads with real hair, nail polish, and a mountain of change.  The only thing to do there, aside from his toes, is count change.  When he gets a roll, he puts stacks of coins into rolled paper sleeves.  She actually asked him, that first night, isn't this fun?  Sean can't get a metallic taste out of his mouth, and in every bite, tasting fork, he thinks about his mom being spoonfed in the mental hospital, and later, at home, by aunt Sarah.  Never him, though.  No matter how bad it gets, Sherry never lets go of the charade that everything's fine, nothing's changed. And every weekend, he has to keep up the same act. Match her fake smile for fake smile.  The chicken nuggets smell like fork, like pennies. Like lies.  But he can't tell her that, so they're mushy, gross instead.

"Well, they're dinner."

Butterfly Queen

The Butterfly Queen/ A Wolf Among Men/ In Your Dreams/ My Worst Nightmare

It all started with a dream.  Then again, doesn't it always?

Marguerite has been dreaming the same dream for 20 years. There have been variations, of course, but it's always the same dream.  All she ever remembered was a castle. The first time she dreamt it, she saw it as a sign to leave Haiti.  Then she saw it as a sign to get married, then to retire, and finally to move to Florida.  What she sees every night is this: she is running through an empty castle, looking back, holding up the skirts of her gown.  The gown is white, her nails a pale pink, and while her feet are bare, the click of her heels echoing off the stone floor is the only sound. She didn't know whether she was running to or away from something; she didn't know where she was headed, away from the past or into the future. Sometimes she was barefoot, and the pain was unbearable.  She would wake shivering in her bed, the walls sweating in the summer heat, hot tears washing her burning cheeks.  The clicking of the fan that woke her sounded like gunfire,  bringing up fears of the regime change and its aftermath. Between the urgency of the dreams and the political maelstrom that year, she had the constant urge to leave Haiti behind.  It took almost two years, and burying her father to convince her mother to leave with her. They moved, but the dreams persisted.  The only time her dreams changed was during her pregnancies, when she dreamed the dreams of her children.  Even then, though, her dreams would sometimes poke through.
***
Chapter 1
Few really important events can be trace to a single moment, a point of impact, but the day they met was the day everything changed, for everyone.
There is a wind that demands compliance, creates isolation. It brings both latent fear and a native consolation to surface, reminding all in its path of their utter smallness, their insignificance in life’s grand scheme.  Cherie was standing in such a wind, at home for the first time since moving from California that summer.  For six months, she’d been bored by the flat gulf waters, the flat landscape, the boring flat roads.  Florida was just so flat.  She missed everything about Cali, but mostly her dad, and her old life.  She was too young to think of the good old days, but she hated that her family was wrenched apart.  Ironically, she blamed her mother, although she’d done nothing wrong.
She was on her five oclock run, a regimine she started when her parents started having quiet conversations behind closed doors.  That’s how she knew it was bad: her family didn’t do anything quietly, and they said everything as it came to mind, no filter.  Even her meme was hush hush—meme who filled her days with funny stories and funnier criticisms about LA.  At thirteen, she developed the need to run away from home, daily, for 45 minutes.  Today was no different.  After getting Kai off the bus, done with homework and safe in front of the Xbox, she headed downstairs for a quick swim and  a run.  Everything was normal, she climbed out of the pool, slipped into a rash guard and sneakers, grabbed her ipod and jogged down the deck stairs toward the beach.
Clicking her way to Incubus, she breathed in deep the gulf air. That’s a plus, she thought.  Florida does smell clean.  However, she did miss the ever present greasy smell of taco stands that lined the west coast. Not that it matters, home isn’t home anymore.  About a mile in, Cherie became mesmerized by the sky.  It was a weird purple, and the waves were swirling up to reach the sky.  Not in theNeptune’s coming for you way of California’s surf, but in this almost calm, mournful way.  She stopped to watch it.  She didn’t know how long she stared,but when she became aware of what she was doing, she started up again, slowly, tiptoeing around mollusks in search of their shells.  One eye was trained on the weird sky.  Even the birds seemed uncertain by this dance of sky and sea.  She sat down to watch the show they provided too.  She became hypnotized by the sound of the beach; she even turned off the music.  It seemed the beach itself was breathing.  She leaned back to be part of the huge slow breath.  She even made a few sand angels.  Just as she was immersed in the greatest sense of relief and peace since her nightmares started, convinced she’d left the boogey man behind, that’s when she caught the wolf’s attention.
***
Cherie gazed into the new sky, amber, with three bright suns lined up one on top of the other, like a streetlight, each progressively warmer in hue than the last.  She eventually realized that the bottom sun was a bird—a giant golden eagle headed straight for her.  Within seconds, the enormous creature was perched on the high branches of a neighboring grove and staring right at Cherie.  Cherie stared back.  As she did, she glimpsed a peach glinting in the sunlight.  She plucked the golden peach and examined it closely. It looked more like an apple up close, but still smelled like a peach, and it tasted like an orange.  All three flavors mixed together like a trifecta for the senses.  She ate ravenously, shocked by her sudden hunger.  She stole another glance at the giant Roc and, as sleep took over, dropped the core to the forest floor.
Within minutes hounds and wolves descended on the scene of the crime.  General Nox hovered over the core, thinking. She smell of the forbidden fruit still lingered in the air, but the culprit had vanished.He ordered troops up and wolves out with a nod of his head. At the command, 300 men scaled the sacred trees, knowing one wrong move would be their death.  If any of the plumchard fell before harvest, Olrec would have the head of clumsy man by supper.
As the men surveyed the scene treetop, 300 wolves scattered to search the forest floor.  Nox paced his horse back and forth at the scene of the crime.  How could he explain the elusive thief without losing his job? Or his life?

Jewely and Cherie

Cherie and Jewely

"So what are the rules?" Cherie asked.
"What do you mean?" Jewely replied.
"I mean, there's always someone who knows the rules--in vampire or fairy or even zombie stories." Cherie asked.
Jewely coughed up a little of her coffee. "This isn't a movie, love. This is real life. Much like with everything else in life, there is no rulebook, no one answer.  If you're asking how to defeat the tyrant, if I knew, don't you think my sisters would have done it already?  What are you really saying?"
Cherie stabbed at her eggs.  "You mean, you introduce me to your little dream world, make me love you and your friends, and yet you have nothing for me? Not a shield or an ancient book, a magic potion or a cloak of invisibility? So I have to solve all of my problems, not to mention yours, with what? My good looks?  That's awesome. Thanks. So much."  Cherie took a long gulp of tea.

Julie got up and tried to put her arms around Cherie's shoulders, but Cherie shrugged her off.  Too late to hide her tears, Cherie stared into the gulf. Julie walked over to the railing, looking out into the setting sun. "I know you feel as though you've been dragged into my world, and that you alone must solve all your own problems, but neither are true.  My world is your world; you dreamed in California.  You were tied to the other dream walkers where you lived. I can't control that you never remembered your dreams. As for this, now, well we are connected to the world we live in, awake or not." Her eyes darted over to Paul Carlo's sleeping form in the hammock below.

Cherie point toward the hammock. "That's just what I mean! How can you tolerate that killer under your roof? Why don't you just kill him in his sleep?"

Jewely turned to face her, mouth wide open. "Do you really see other people as just a commodity to be expended if they prove to be no use to you? That tyrant  is a scared little boy in pain. What would you have me do? Ban a depressed disabled boy form the only haven he knows? That would sentence him to even more ridicule and pain at the hands of his brothers. What do you think would happen to Summerlin then? Would he be kinder?  No, for all I know, the sanctity of Genesis house is the only reason he hasn't sent his army to set the whole forest aflame.  If you can't see that, maybe you're too young, too naive to help."  With that, Jewely opened the slider and went inside.

A Hero's Welcome

JJ came home from Afghanistan a hero, received a hero's welcome in DC, but was met with icy stares from the customers at Hayford's.  They had no reason not to, and their coldness only fueled his indignance.  He greeted them with enough ice and rancor in his voice to put some of them off enough to go back to buying their meat at Publix.  Warren noticed but said nothing to him.  There were always customers and their prices could not be beat.  He knew only bits and pieces of the story but it was enough for him to cut the kid a little slack.  He'd come home last June in one piece, but the rest of his platoon were in bags.  He was the lookout in his last exercise, and just happened to be on the other side of the hill when they were attacked.  He ran toward his guys to warn them, and crossed into their field of vision in time for him to witness the explosion.  His return home was called a miracle.  He called it hell.  He didn't sign up to be the sole survivor.  He had enough death on his hands.  He didn't want to outlive anyone.  He had a deathwish.  It was too strong for suicide.  His death was so warranted, it had to come from fate.  He couldn't deny her that.  His night terrors were his cross and his due.  His guilt, his punishment.  He didn't deserve to lighten his sentence.  And neither did God.

Becoming Todd Jarren Andersen

Becoming Todd Jarren Andersen

December, 2010

No one was there when the boy appeared on the swingset at Palm Ridge park, but if they had been, they wouldn't have believed it anyway.  Pat and Teresa Andersen were the ones to discover him, which made it all the more strange, especially that night.  He was in shorts and flipflops and it was December,a cold one at that. They were walking home from dinner, on an anniversary of sorts, at around 11 oclock when they saw the boy.

He was unresponsive about who he was, where he'd come from.  They didn't quite know what to do with him.  They were more apprehensive than most adults in their situation would have been, but no one faults them for it.  They finally agreed on taking him to the hospital to be checked for trauma and later, the police department to see if the boy fit any descriptions of a missing child.

Detective Burkie arrived at the hospital while the Andersens were still checking the boy in.  She couldn't believe what she saw.  It was striking, the similarities. She'd been at the call 7 years prior.  More important than that, their boys' had swum together.  TJ had joined them on vacation to Disney.  He called her "other mom".  But she was no rookie.  The years had to swim together in the back of her mind, tomorrow morning on her day off, tonight with some wine when she could talk it over with Jack.  Not now.  Especially not when they have to be dying inside.  All business."What's your name, sweetie?"  she asked.

"TJ", the boy answered.  He seemed oblivious to the gasps.  To the clacking of a passing nurse's clipboard.  It was a small town, after all.

Teresa turned inside Pat's arms and folded herself into his chest.  She felt too wobbly to walk and as though she might get sick.  Gulping big half sobs, she allowed herself to be led away.  They stopped in front of a vending machine.  She was too racked to ask the question on her lips, he was too consumed himself to answer.  They rocked and swayed as Sarah questioned the boy.

They followed her to the precinct two hours later to reaffirm that he was not a missing persons case.  Sarah called Judge Hack out of bed to determine placement.  The social worker assigned to the case agreed with the judge: there was no better home for the boy than the Andersen's.

They traveled home in silence, which the boy seemed comfortable with.  He smiled when they showed him his room, with TJ painted on the wall in bright blue letters.  They tucked him in, by now moving in stiff detached motions, and stood by the door until they heard his soft, loud, almost heaving slow into a dreamstate.

They walked in a dreamstate of their own and crawled noiselessly into bed.  They fell asleep facing each other, holding hands, knees drawn up as though in prayer, their tear-stained cheeks providing stripes of cool even as the furnace blew on their faces.

They awoke to the smell of burning toast, running out in time to fan the over-vigilant smoke detector.  As if it were stage choreography, they each take a towel and begin to shake them in the air.

"What are you doing?" TJ asks.

"Fire drill", they both reply between giggles.  They used to laugh all the time, but the years have drawn their mouths down into serious crescents.  This old joke, from Before Disaster is the only thing that ever draws a smile these days, aside from the old stand-up tapes they have from college. They don't even have a player to play them, but they don't need one.  The best clips are regularly sewn into their conversation.  One last vestige of normal.  In fact, that easy conversation point, that one parlor trick, saves countless uncomfortable moments around town.  They provide the illusion that for Pat and Teresa life had the ability to surprise them, had joy infused in the small moments.  Little did their townsfolk really understand that it was more muscle memory than a genuine response to life's little quirks.  They didn't have much time to appreciate life's little quirks, ever since they became part of life's big joke.

But this was different.  The sun shone in through the window just so, and their laughter had a bubbly quality of one truly amused.  Not by a clever observation, but of the simple irony of the situation.  This was a truly novel moment.

They laughed themselves into tears, and it took them until the eggs were cooked and the juice poured to bring themselves to explain the joke.

"I don't get it," TJ said.
"Okay" Pat tried again.  He swigged some juice. "You know how when you have a fire drill at school, everyone lines up and the teacher gets the keys and you head outside to a designated spot?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Well, our smoke detector has always been hyper-sensitive.  The builders put one on either side of the stove, so it goes off almost every time we cook."
TJ starts to laugh.
"Get it?"
"No, but I was afraid I'd ruined the morning with my terrible cooking."
"Don't get me wrong the toast is awful." Teresa choked out, struggling with a charred end.  She smiled when she saw TJ's shocked face.  "Just kidding, kid.  This was sweet.  Reminds me of something our boy would do."

"You have a son?"

"Yeah, and that was his first real joke.  When the alarm would ring, he'd run and get a towel and yell 'Fire Drill!' The first time my mom heard him, it took us even longer to explain that TJ understood the concept of an actual drill than it did to explain the joke to you."
"Wait, you have a son...and his name is..." TJ chugged the rest of his OJ. "TJ?"

***

August 2003

TJ entered Ms. Sanchez's first grade classroom slowly.  He was a good enough reader to know that none of his friends from kindergarten were inside.   He found his desk and began putting his supplies inside, organized by color and smell.  The smelly pencils belonged in the back, away from jealous eyes.  They were his emergency pencils, for when he would undoubtedly need a pick me up.  He worked methodically like this when he was 'scoping out the scene'.  One of cool Uncle Jay's terms.  He hadn't felt grown up enough to try it out loud yet, and was hoping today would be the day.  Maybe in lunch line with Alex Dumfries or Serge Romansky.  Not likely now that he's checked out his class.

 "You dropped one."

TJ didn't look up to see the speaker, instead he eyed the ground for the missing pencil.  He stole a look at the shoes, ratty gray converse high tops, before drawing a deep breath.  "Thanks."

He looked up and saw a kid that could have been his cousin.  Longer eyelashes maybe.  Thinner lips, for sure.  But enough similarity for him to smile wider than he wanted to.  He stuck out his hand.  "TJ".

"Kevin."

He used his phrase and three others of Uncle Jay's that day at lunch.  Kevin cracked him up and ate the dried apricots mom insisted were as good as fruit by the foot.  They weren't.  Kevin was kind enough not to notice.

***

Open Doors

I try to write with the door shut, and only mention that I write in passing to my students, but once in a while, their inquiries unravel the knots I create and can't undo easily.  This feels like murky waters, ethically, on one hand, but like really great teaching moments on the other.  This morning, a 10 minute conversation took my first period 6th graders to places like when irony stretches the readers suspension of disbelief and which tone is more appropriate for the piece.  Their comments and inquiries were what I've been trying to pull out of them with Kipling, Cisneros, and Collins.  I wonder: how to get them to see written works as malleable and debatable as works in progress.  Letters to the author halfway through with suggestions?  Are they intimidated by the permanance of a published work or are they simply uncomfortable arguing with adults they  don't know.  Either way, how do I ethically recreate these conversations without bringing in my writings for their parsing?