“Boy, you’re going to wake up your brother. You know he’s still sleeping! And get down here for breakfast you’re running late. You have three minutes, Mr. Lazy Ass,” my mom yells from the kitchen.

“You’re going to wake him up yourself! Stop yelling!” I holler.

She slams the fridge door as a response. I dab a piece of toilet paper on my oozing, bleeding zit and go to the bedroom to get dressed.

It’s dark. Jim is still sleeping. “Lucky son of a bitch,” I whisper. His high school starts an hour later than the junior high. I tug on a dangling, worn-out, red string of wrapping-paper ribbon to turn on the light in the closet. It doesn’t turn on. I pull again. It clicks but no light. I pull. I pull. I pull again. No light. “Shit times two,” I grumble as I grab what’s probably my plaid button-up shirt. The jeans from yesterday are crumpled on my side of the bed. They’re baggy; they’ve got cool silver stitching; they’ll be fine. I pull them on, cinch a belt around my waist and hustle to the kitchen.

“You better take this with you out the door,” my mom says.

She hands me a just-out-of-the-toaster Pop-Tart. I juggle the burning ember of a breakfast from hand to hand as I grab my backpack and head out the door.

I get to the subway platform freaking 15 seconds late. The subway car doors nearly close on my nose. “Next one had better come fast,” I threaten to no one on the empty platform.

Then I hear it, Bentley’s voice echoes down from the top of the stairs. He’s the only dude in New York who publicly tries to sing Alicia Key’s part of Empire State of Mind. “In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made. There’s nothing you can’t do. Now you’re in New York. These streets will make you feel brand new. Bright lights will inspire you. Let’s hear it for New York.” But no one giggles when his voice wobbles and cracks like a retard. His crew just beat-boxes along with him. He’s getting closer. He’s getting louder. There’s no place for me to hide.

To keep my nervous knees still, I go sit on the bench. I choose a middle seat hoping to get cushioned by strangers.

“Hey bitch!” he yells.

I pretend like he isn’t talking to me.

“I’m talking to you lame-ass,” he says.

I steal at glance to assess the situation. A few commuters have joined us by the tracks. But Bentley’s not talking to them. They know it. I know it. Everyone is waiting for me to respond.

On the 24th floor of the Kings County federal court house, Julie walked to a wall of windows that looked over Central Brooklyn. Even though the windows were tinted gray, she could tell it was sunny. She believed it was the first stereotypical spring day of the season: warm sun, cool air. She imagined taking that first invigorating, deep breath of fresh air, the type of inhalation that enlivened her lungs after hours of canned, stale air, the type she took after opening the front door of a 747, the type she would take right now if she could.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Destine said.

Julie’s sails deflated and a searing flare burned the skin on the back of her neck. That woman, the talker, was talking directly to her. “It was,” Julie quipped and walked away toward the ladies’ room.

In an acceptably clean stall, Julie sat down with her head in her hands to give herself the semblance of privacy and comfort, and then she decided to text Roger. “OMG, this crazy, overly friendly woman is like stepping up to me.”
Roger was in a meeting at the office, but he still texted back immediately with unequivocal empathy, “Oh no! That sucks.”
“WTF do I do?!” she texted back.

Then she heard the bathroom door open and a woman settle into the stall next to hers.

“Excuse me. Would you be so kind as to pass me a bit of toilet paper? My stall seems to be out.”

Julie froze as though someone had just accidentally opened her stall door. She recognized the voice. But before she could choose an apt response, Destine continued. “Guess we don’t pay enough taxes to keep ample toilet paper in here. Or maybe it’s just a sign of the recession. Who knows?”

Destine’s loquaciousness gave Julie time to realize that while she knew it was Destine, Destine probably didn’t know it was her. So Julie wadded up a handful of paper and reached under the stall wall. A hand grabbed it. “Thank you so, so much,” she said. “It’s always a little awkward when that sort of thing happens, but it does remind us that we’re here for each other. Life isn’t a game of solitaire.”

“No problem,” Julie said concurrently flushing the toilet to cover any recognizable quality of her voice. Then she rushed to the sink to wash her hands. As she hit the lever for the soap, Destine’s toilet flushed. An almost-too-small glop of coral-colored soap dropped into her hand. It would have to be enough. Julie quickly tried to lather it between her dry hands. Then she waved them in front of the black eye of the automatic water faucet. It wouldn’t turn on. Julie noticed the sink was dry. She moved over to the other sink on her right.

Destine opened her stall door and walked up to the dry sink. Julie felt heavy in her ballet flats. It was as though she were stuck to the floor, weighted down by the pressure of the moment. Then her water turned on. She rapidly rubbed her frothy hands together in the stream. Julie felt Destine’s energy. But Destine’s automatic faucet did not. Less than a foot away, Destine was struggling to get the faucet on.

“What is going on here?” Destine said to Julie. Julie interpreted it as rhetorical. “No paper, no water. I do say so myself. Guess I’ll just use yours when you’re done.”

“Ok?” Julie said slowly with a tone that meant “I think you’re weird.”

Destine saw this as an invitation. “I do have two daughters. I know that tone. I know that tone very well. There’s no reason to use that tone with me. I’ve only been friendly to you.”

Julie put on the cold, authoritative and alert face she would use if a passenger had had one too many self-servings of liquor, and then she gave Destine a chance to dissolve the tension. “Excuse me?” she said.

“I’m just saying, I’ve been nothing but kind. This city is filled to the brim, to the brim with people. The common thread between them all?

Each and every one of them wants to feel good, wants to feel accepted. What makes someone feel good? Friendliness. What makes someone feel bad? Impatience. Rudeness. That is what I try to teach my girls. That is what Oprah’s success has taught the world. That is how I live,” Destine said.

Julie’s clean hands dripped into the sink. “Look, I don’t want to start with you. I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t want to be enemies with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, and I don’t want you to force yourself on me. Pretend I’m not here, pretend I’m just a piece of the furniture, pretend I don’t exist, alright?”

Destine stood still startled and confused. Her daughters, her regular challengers, never presented her with a quandary like this.

“Are you telling me you want to die?” Destine asked.

“That’s precious,” Julie said.

No matter how angry they got, how much fire they spit at her, they wanted and needed their mommy. This woman is different. She doesn’t need me, Destine thought.

Julie continued, “Because I don’t want to deal with you, you think I don’t want to be alive? Are you really that narcissistic?”

“No, um. That didn’t come out right,” Destine said. “I just can’t imagine, I just wanted to help, that’s all. You seem unhappy and I just wanted to help. But you don’t want to let me help, you don’t want my help, you don’t want to be happy, that’s fine I guess.”

“Now because I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to be happy?” After these words hissed from Julie’s mouth, she realized Destine wasn’t capable of seeing things from her perspective. “Look, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you think. All I care is that you leave me alone. Go away from me.”

“Well,” Destine said noncommittally.

“Now!” Julie commanded.

“Ok then,” she said, and left the bathroom.

Julie walked back into her original stall, closed the door and sat back down. She lifted her shirt and wrapped her arms around herself beneath the warmth of her breasts. Surprise, frustration, powerlessness, humiliation, anger, dejection and relief simmered through her and nearly spilled out as tears. She checked her phone. Roger had texted back, “I wish I could help you but I can’t. Try telling a bailiff??”

“Why doesn’t everyone just leave me alone? I just want to be alone,” she murmured. But even she didn’t fully believe it.

Julie, a flight attendant, was grounded. It was as though there was a blizzard spanning the whole Eastern half of the U.S. and she had to get home from O’Hare, but every New York airport was temporarily closed. She fidgeted in her pleather chair that was connected to 24 other pleather chairs by shared arm rests. But it wasn’t winter. It was the first warm day of spring, when all of New York dusted off and glowed refreshed. And it wasn’t the airport. It was a King’s County courthouse—jury duty. And she had never wanted to go home as much as she wanted to get out of that room right at that moment.

The walls of her one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope were white, unpunctured by nails, unfettered by artwork. Her refrigerator had only natural peanut butter, blueberry jam, a Britta filter and honey mustard. The kitchen cabinet where the previous tenant kept pots and pans, she stored washed plastic takeout containers. The dishes in the cabinet were unscratched. The coffee table, kitchen counter and bathroom sink remained unstained. The couch a mod design in bright red from Ikea, but uncomfortable to sit in for long stretches, sat stark like a sudden stoplight on a dark, country road. A fruit bowl held bright oranges and Granny Smith apples. This was how she liked it—like a picture from a catalog.

And that’s how Roger kept it. He just wanted to fit in to her life, to burrow out a nook and stay there till death did they part. She loved him more than his own mother did, he thought. So he slept, brushed his teeth, shaved, showered, stretched out on the couch to watch TV, and poured himself evening drinks of Jonny Walker Black, without leaving a mark. At least 60 percent of his time at home was spent wiping, sweeping and smoothing. He loved her.

In the courthouse Julie stretched in her seat to try to see the street without getting up, but couldn’t, even though she had placed herself at the outer edge of the row. She only saw the stationary and bland second floor of nearby buildings. So she decided to watch the activity of this bottled up swath of Brooklyn around her, a few hundred of her strangest neighbors sitting under the fluorescent lights waiting just like her. Some people read the Daily News. A minority read The New York Times. About 20 percent of the people were engrossed in books and 50 percent were on laptops. There was one man making what she knew to be friendship bracelets out of thread the colors of the Jamaican flag; one young woman with thick eyeliner and combat boots slept deeply; one overweight black woman struck up conversations with every person within a 10-foot radius from her seat; and yawns. There were many, many yawns rolling through the room like far-off thunder.

She had brought her computer with her. But to get it out of her bag, open it and boot it up would be to commit to her spot, to build her chair into a little nest. That in Julie’s mind would be like surrendering to her situation, to her container. So she decided to text Roger. He didn’t need to wake up until 10:30 this morning, but he wouldn’t mind hearing from her even though it was only 8:33. “Holy Christ, this sucks,” she sent. And then she waited.

Jennifer, wearing skin-tight jeans, a drooping belt and a baggy American Apparel sweatshirt, marched up to the microphone like a super model, each foot exactly in front of the other, knees exaggeratedly popping up on each step so she resembled a two-legged, upright deer. A few audience members released a short spurt of giggles assuming this was part of a comedy routine. Then she began her story:

“I was a skinny bitch. I could have modeled if I was an inch or two taller—that’s what an agent told me. And I know that sounds awesome ladies, but it really sort of sucks. At least half of the advice in women’s magazines, how to lose weight, how to get toned abs, how to have clear skin, didn’t apply to me. I couldn’t join in casual conversations about weight or diet without getting eyes rolled at me or behind my back. I was an outcast—excluded from most of the topics inherent in female-to-female interaction.”
Jennifer had expected a murmur of sudden enlightenment from the audience, but didn’t get one.

“When I got pregnant I didn’t show until I was 6 months along. I didn’t stop wearing high heels until 7 and a half months. Women would gawk in disbelief at my distended belly balancing above my size-2 legs and 4-inch heels. I felt beautiful and proud. I imagined this is how Heidi Klum feels when she steps out on the red carpet dressed to the nines while being as wide as a house, because she always smiles.

“The first time someone offered me a seat on the subway, I was on my way home from the office on the uptown 2 train. It was insanely full. I had had to let two trains go by before I even could squeeze myself on board. When I did, I noticed an open spot mid-car. I hate it when people don’t move in and just stand there crowding the doors. So I finagled myself to the spot and stood there in front of a row of seated commuters. The man directly in front of me was engrossed in a copy of Esquire. But when the train started, I lost my balance and my bump bumped into the Esquire. ‘Excuse me,’ I said in a whisper hoping those three syllables would be the beginning and end of the uncomfortable exchange. But before I could grab my Blackberry to look busy while underground, the guy said, ‘Would you like to sit down?’

‘No. Thanks I’m fine,’ I said in a chipper tone to show just how fine I really was.

‘Are you sure? It’s no big deal,’ he pressed on.

‘I can stand on my own two feet. I’m not some charity case,’ I spouted.

‘Damn. I was just trying to be nice,’ he said.

An elderly woman next to him leaned over. ‘You did the right thing,’ she told him.

And then I topped off my performance with. ‘Sorry. I should have said, ‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’ Oh wait, I did.’”

Here Jennifer anticipated someone in the crowd would give a big woohoo, but the audience was quiet.

“At that I could tell he was assessing whether to join me in a public fight or to crawl back into the safety of the unruffled mass of patient commuters. He chose patience and picked his magazine back up. I felt like I’d won.

“But from then on out, I was offered a seat every single time I boarded a train. It was like that one interaction opened the floodgates of New Yorker’s gentility. But I didn’t need one or want one. I could hold my own weight—which you know isn’t much.”

No laughter. No peep. Jessica kept going.

“So whenever I waited for a train, I made sure never to sit down. I would stand there with the rest of the ambulatory commuters even if an empty bench was just a few feet away. Then when I boarded, I would stay right in the doorway as far away as possible from the seats. But it never paid off. Every single time, some seemingly generous soul would tap me on the arm to offer up their seat. At first I kept up the tough girl act with comments like, ‘Do I look like I can’t hold myself up? Are you telling me I’m fat?’ But eventually this got boring, and I just started saying no like three or four times in row. It would go like this:

Them: ‘Do you want to sit down?’
Me: ‘No thanks. I’m fine.’
Them: ‘It’s ok. I’m getting off soon.’
Me: ‘No really, it’s ok. I’d prefer to stand.’
Them: ‘Are you sure?’
Me: ‘You’re too kind. But no thank you.’
Them: ‘Ok. Fine.’

“But then one day, I woke up with cankles. You know, fat ankles that appear to be part of the calf. Luckily it was a rainy day so I could cover them up with my Marc Jacobs rain boots. But even my big boots weren’t wide enough for my whale feet. Each rain boot fit tight like foot condoms. My feet hurt like crazy and gave me an unsightly waddle.”

Jennifer had expected a few girls to groan empathetically. But no one did.

Ralph’s butternut-squash head hangs down. The yellow kitchen light reflects off his oily bald crown. He looks at the deep blue stain on the thigh of his jeans. Last spring, the pen he kept in his hip pocket sprung a leak. It was the one he used to fill out invoices for his handyman jobs. “Ralph the Right Man for the Job” was printed on the pen’s side. He had bought 500 of them. He hopes no one else’s “Ralph” pen leaked. He hopes Rose will feel better soon. But Ralph is old enough to know that hoping does no good. He has to accept what he can’t change and change what he knows he can improve. Rose’s outlook he can probably improve.

They were married at age 19 in 1966 at a VFW in South Brooklyn. He knew her so well she was like a puzzle piece he could always shape himself around. He knew how to support her no matter what she said, no matter what was on her mind. They had evolved together over a lifetime.

“And there’s nothing of me anywhere else,” she says fingering a neon yellow square of yarn she’d knitted together and used like a trivet. He looks up at her. She is missing something; she had been for a long time. But now the deficiency had gone on too long. He knew what she needed—a meaningful job.

When he accepted the offer for early retirement last year, he drummed up a handyman business lickity split. He liked to help people and finally could do so without the beast to feed. His longtime albatross: the cable company. The cable company just wanted to make money. Ralph just wanted to make people happy. The pursuits overlapped when he was able to fix people’s cable connections without having to charge them more for the service. This didn’t happen nearly often enough for his liking. Then came the Internet. Cable customers wanted to ask him all about their modems, their connection speed, their WiFi, and to Ralph it was all gibberish. The cable company said training Ralph and the other older gentleman wasn’t a good investment. The cable company was done with Ralph, and Ralph was done with the cable company. As his pension kicked in, his next endeavor was clear. He made himself into the ultimate Mr. Fix-It—a hero in Carhartts. He made people happy by making their sliding doors slide, drains drain, creaky door that woke the visiting grandchildren quiet as a yawn. His work lived on in all of the problems he solved with his calluses. He was improving people’s lives. But Rose? He couldn’t say that Rose found the same satisfaction in work.

Rose cleaned homes—the same homes over and over again. When she’d leave a home smelling of bleach and ammonia, the walls unscuffed, the wood floors shiny, the windows translucent and streak-free, the stubborn spot of petrified burnt onion off the stovetop, she felt accomplished. Task done. Goals met. But then she’d go to that same house a week or two later, and it would be a mess. Her hard work from before non-existent. And it was this Sisyphean battle that kept the money coming in. If families didn’t ruin her work, they wouldn’t need her anymore. Ralph knew it disappointed her.

Ralph knows Rose needs to hear him say something. She needs to hear that he has heard her. He pushes his brain hard to come up with something helpful to say. But he comes up empty. “It’s like how you can’t remember something when you’re trying to remember it,” Ralph says.

“What?” Rose isn’t sure if she should be excited, relieved or frustrated by what he just said. A twinge of hope picks her head off her hand. She looks at him expectantly.

“Oh, shoot. Just thinking out loud, I guess.”

“Oh.” Rose’s eyes go back down.

The Games

Ten winter sports events have been announced as part of the 2010 New York City Winter Olympics. The three sports categorized as endurance sports are: Bare-Legged, High-Heeled Outdoor Line Waiting (women only); Outdoor Smoking Endurance; and Winter Weather Advisory Cab Hailing. The four sports categorized as speed sports are: Narrow, Crowded Sidewalk Sprints; the Icy Sidewalk Relay; Snowy Subway Stair Running; and Identify/Save the Homeless Man. The two sports categorized as agility sports are Puddle Jumping and Subway Balancing, a year round event. The most anticipated sport each year is a category in and of itself: Eating. This year, contestants will devour large, hot bowls of Ramen noodle soup.

Bare-Legged, High-Heeled Outdoor Line Waiting (Women’s only)

New York’s February Fashion Week, officially called Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, inspired this endurance sport in which only the toughest fashionistas can compete. The sport is meant to replicate the circumstances of waiting outside in a long line to get into a popular club in midwinter. In this event, women in high heels, short skirts and absolutely no nylons must stand outside on a blustery sidewalk at night for as long as possible. The winner is the woman who endures the longest. In 2010, the Olympic Committee has selected a location just west of the popular Meatpacking District, on the western edge of the West Side Highway. At this location, buildings do not block competitors from the wind. As the event has evolved, competition has increased. Scores are weighted for difficulty, and as a result, the heels of the shoes have been getting increasingly high. This year it is expected competitors will wear shoes with heel height a minimum of 6 inches. No woman has won the competition in lower than 4-inch heels. Women can huddle together, but not touch each other’s legs or feet. Anyone found with a heating pad in the shoe is disqualified. The world record is held by Icelandic model Katrín Evudóttir who withstood temperatures reaching real-feel 3-degrees Fahrenheit for 13 hours. No competitors have made it until sunrise when the sun would warm the extremities and potentially give the women an advantage. The most common injury associated with the event is toe amputation.

Outdoor Smoking Endurance (Women and Men)

While some urban legends point to Fashion Week as the inspiration for this event, the real impetus was the legions of smokers standing outside office buildings. In this event competitors must skillfully differentiate between the exhalation of smoke and the exhalation of steam—an ability likely gained after years of practicing the cold-weather exhale. Those who keep exhaling beyond the point of releasing the smoke from the lungs are often handicapped by affects of hyperventilation. They are often disqualified after becoming dizzy and resting their hand on a wall or the ground for support. Another risk for disqualification is hand-numbness and inability to light the next cigarette. Rules require a lighter or match to be used, and the window between cigarettes must be under 35 seconds. The winner is the smoker who can smoke the most number of cigarettes outside without being disqualified. Construction workers have long held the advantage in the men’s competition. Secretaries have long held the advantage in the women’s competition.

Winter Weather Advisory Cab Hailing

This event incorporates speed, strategy and endurance. Competitors must withstand bitter, winter weather, choose the best position at which to hail a cab, and must get into that cab before other competitors do. This last step requires not only speed, but also strategy. If the cab isn’t able to stop near enough to the hailer, the cab could be intercepted by another competitor. The Olympic Committee chooses the intersection in Manhattan. In 2010, the committee chose the busy, four-way stop at 42nd Street and Broadway. This event has been the focus of much criticism for a few reasons. First scantily clad women have an advantage in the sport. All female, gold-medal winners have won by revealing their lingerie to the cab driver. The all-time record has been held for a decade by a woman with size triple-D breasts. On the other hand, Hispanic and African American men have a disadvantage, as cab drivers have long been wary of picking them up out of safety concerns. Only skinny, Caucasian men dressed in white-collar attire have placed in this event in the men’s competition. Groups protecting the rights of all impacted demographics protest the event on an annual basis.

Narrow, Crowded Sidewalk Sprints

New York County is the most densely populated county in the country. When sidewalks become narrowed by piles of shoveled snow, pedestrian travel requires increased agility. This event is comprised of three, block-long sprints during evening rush hour. Two of the sprints are on numbered streets and extend about 200 feet. The third sprint extends across an avenue block, approximately 1000 feet in length. Competitors must zigzag, swerve around, or hop over any obstacles in the path including other pedestrians. A participant is disqualified if he or she jumps off the sidewalk to the street or if he or she bumps into another person without stopping and saying, “Excuse me. Are you ok?” Any damage done to the street or property, including knocking over of a city garbage can or knocking off a car’s side mirror, is a deduction of points. Extra points are given to competitors carrying grocery bags or other bulky, heavy items. Extra points are no longer given to competitors carrying children, as this practice was banned after little Maggie suffered whiplash in 2007.

Icy Sidewalk Relay

After a snow storm, ice on New York City sidewalks isn’t smooth like that found on an ice rink. Rather it’s often bumpy, similar to moguls found in skiing. In this competition, teams of four run across extended patches of bumpy, New York City sidewalk ice. Cleats, crampons or Yaktrax shoe soles are not permitted. Team members must wear common-man rain or snow boots. No baton is used as in traditional track and field relays. Rather team members hand-off a “stolen” purse purchased from a local thrift store and approved by the Olympic Committee. Sidewalks used for the event are closed to the general public until the race is completed, and the sidewalk is de-iced.

More Sporting Events…

Noah Wailen was looking at her. Her? “Me?” she thought. “Out of everybody in the chic, dark basement bar, including skinny girls with big boobs and thousand-dollar handbags, he’s looking at me?”

Noah dipped his chin in a slight nod. The move was as subtle as a cat that only twitches an ear to react to a sound. He was coolly, coyly acknowledging her.

“Me!” she cheered in her mind. “Meeeeee! Eeeee! OMG I have to tell Vicky.”

Vicky was smiling, showing off her straight, bleached teeth to no one in particular, as she listened to the chatter at the table. She was always smiling but to those who didn’t know her well, it usually seemed sincere. Acquaintances often reacted by smiling back receptively, expectantly, as though Vicky was a ray of sunshine they wanted to get warmed by.

Audrey knew that Vicky really wasn’t that happy. They had shared many late nights drinking alone together venting about their insecurities and sharing the horror stories of their high school years. Vicky, a size 4, worried her thighs had too much giggle, that the German structure of her face made her appear manly, and that people thought she was vapid. Vicky’s deepest scar from high school came after she lost her virginity to a basketball player. After their break-up, he had Sharpied her cell-phone number “for a good time” in the boys’ locker room. Vicky was not a happy camper even though she appeared that way to most people. To Audrey, this made her utterly alluring, like someone who could get beat up and yet keep on fighting. She imagined that was what Hollywood actresses were like: human and miserable but blessed like by a fairy godmother that made their pain fade behind a royal glow of beauty and happiness. It was like Vicky’s make-up, Audrey thought. Vicky would wear thick, syrupy lip gloss all day, everyday, and Audrey had never seen her long hair get stuck in it. Vicky wore colorful eye shadow, and she never looked like a clown or like she was trying too hard.

Vicky would know what to do. Audrey yelled in a whisper at her ear. “Oh my god. You won’t believe this. Look over my shoulder to like 11 o’clock. Wait, don’t be obvious.”

“Ok, ok, I’m going slow.”

“Dude, he’s looking at me. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“Oh my god. Noah Wailen?” Vicky gushed.

Audrey squeaked.

“How do you know?” Vicky said. Audrey felt spanked by Vicky’s doubt, but tried to ignore it.

“Cause I’ve just been sitting here, chilling out and looking around and we caught eyes. I looked away but each time

I glance back, he’s staring at me. And then, he gave me a nod. Like a slight, hot-as-hell nod.”

“Oh my god! I’m so happy for you. So cool.”

“So, what do I do?”

“This is something between you and him. You should do what’s in your heart.”

“Vicky, what does that mean? Ugh, do I go over there? Should I wait for him to come here? Should I smile at him?” C’mon, help me, she thought.

“You haven’t smiled at him?!” Vicky gasped in disapproval.

“No. Oh my god, I hope I have ruined this. I’ve just been so stunned.”

“Well smile at him, give him an unconfusable sign. Guys are dense, even Noah Wailen, I’m sure.”

“Ok, ok.”

I awoke to a few powerful jabs in my ribs that I momentarily thought were from a perturbed angel trying to shoo me off his heavenly cloud with a baton. When I turned, I realized my girlfriend Kelly was poking me sharply with her bony left elbow.

“You’re doing it again,” she groused as I came to.

“Huh? Oh. Sorry. Same as before?” I replied, my voice sounding like an unexorcised demon’s, as it tends to be at 4:00 A.M.

“Yes, exactly like before,” she said, wiping her blonde bangs from her eyes. “This is really starting to. . . well . . . it’s totally freaking me out. I don’t know if I can deal with this right now.”

I understood why she was upset, since I had woken her up with my bizarre ritual for eight nights in a row. From September 3rd to September 10th, 2001, I kept repeating the word “cataclysm” in my sleep. I said it exactly ten times each night in a stentorian voice, as if I were broadcasting an urgent announcement to the rest of the world. In a normal state, I have a low voice, one that people say makes me sound like a graying news anchor, rather than someone like me, a scrawny 30-year-old Asian guy. But when I said “cataclysm,” I descended even further into a deep bass. I’d heard myself do this as Kelly recorded me on a tape recorder the third night it happened and, in the morning, angrily played back what I was putting her through. Curious to see if I had any more to say, she did not disturb me on the first seven nights, but on the eighth night she jabbed me after the fifth “cataclysm,” unable to endure anymore.

The same dream accompanied my repetition of “cataclysm” each night. I was sitting in a cloud in the heavens looking down onto a cityscape at night. Though I was miles in the air, I had telescopic vision that enabled me to see every intricate detail on the ground, even peoples’ faces. Amidst throngs of strangers below, I spotted my grandmother who was dressed in a traditional colorful Korean robe and looked at least 30 years younger, her hair jet-black, and her face unwrinkled. She could see me in my cloud and waved at me cheerily. When she saw that she had my attention, she held out her arms to me, welcoming me into them.

This dream related to a family legend. The night I was born, my grandmother said that as she was waiting in the hospital lobby for my birth, she fell asleep. She dreamt that she was standing outside in the Korean countryside when she saw a falling star in the night sky. She stood directly in the star’s trajectory, knowing that it was not going to harm her. When the star reached her, she lifted the hem of her dress and caught it, the way a girl catches an apple falling from a tree. When she looked down into her lap to see what stars were made of, she saw a newborn baby.

In my dream, by holding out her arms to me, I knew she was inviting me to be born into her family. But I couldn’t bring myself to fall out of my cloud. I knew I would fall safely into her arms, but I believed that some unspeakable event would befall the world immediately afterward. The feeling was so horrid that I wanted to stay safely aloft in my diaphanous limbo, never to be born.

Each morning, I awoke just before I could see the exact nature of what I had feared. All day afterward, at work, at meals, at bars, I could not shake the disconsolate feeling that the world was on the verge of being struck by an evil beyond description, one that I did not have the temerity to face.

At my office computer at work that day, I spent more time using Google to interpret my dreams than actually working.

“Cataclysm.” Three definitions: 1) a violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change; 2) a violent and sudden change in the earth’s crust; 3) a devastating flood. From the French cataclysme, which was derived from the Latin cataclysmos, which was derived from the Greek kataklusmos meaning “to inundate.” Originated when “kata-” (an intensive Greek prefix) met kluzein meaning, “to wash away.”

Searching on Google using the terms “cataclysm” and “nightmares” I found about 10,000 articles, links, blogs and message boards. I must have clicked on at least two-thirds of them over the course of the next few hours. A good proportion were blogs of so-called psychics with ramblings that I found too drivelish to pay attention to even in my desperate state. I found nothing that actually helped me understand what I was going through.

“Hey Riley, man let’s roll a big, fat-ass joint,” suggests Danny.

“Yeah man, we can roll it in the park.”

The park. If I had known we were going to the park, I would have tried to look a little cooler. It’s the park they used to film the fight scene in the movie Kids, the movie. Patches of grass peak out between concrete slopes and benches. The homeless kids hang out by the arch and in the dry, broken fountain. Poets—without a high school degree or a home—stand in the center and shout angry rhymes. Men with dreads sell incense on the sides. A guy is making chalk portraits on the ground. We just barely miss stepping on one of his drawings and park ourselves against a fence. Riley slips his arms around my back. The pressure almost pushes me down face first. But I try to hold my ground. I know he just wants to be close to me.

Roddie looks like he wants to say something or maybe he’s chewing on something. Danny directs, “Roll the mother fucker.”

Riley cups his free hand into his pocket and slips Danny the bud. Danny crouches low to the ground trying to look inconspicuous. As if! He messes up three times and on the fourth, we have a loose but smoke-able jay. Then Riley lights it.

I know what we look like. We look obvious. We’re so going to get busted. For all of Riley’s self-righteous, honor, truth and dignity bullshit, he’s doesn’t see the obvious. I see thousands of possible outcomes from every single decision. He just sees everything as good or bad—and by default everything is good unless proven otherwise. The consequences of smoking pot out in the open? Good, cause he’s never gotten busted yet. But the first time is all it takes. If I get in trouble my mom will never let me see him again.

I feel like a bug is crawling under my skin. This isn’t rebellion or freedom. This is just stupid. We had to buy the weed on the street. But we don’t have to smoke it here. I try to keep my eyes peeled for cops. No blue suits. There are sirens, but there are always sirens. What if the cop is undercover, incognito? Then what do I do? How do I know who’s watching us? “Riley, this is crazy. We don’t know who’s watching us. We could so get busted.”

“Come here.” He puts his arms around me and tells me to take a deep breath as he passes me the joint. “Everything’s going to be ok,” he tells me. I never believe him until the fourth or fifth time he tells me. He’s only said it twice so far. Or maybe I thought it once and he said it once. I don’t know. Whatever. Roddie passes me the jay again and I take a hit as quickly as I can. I pass it on fast. Riley doesn’t notice it’s his turn.

“Take it!” I jab him in the shoulder.

“Relax, Harmony. Everything’s going to be ok.”

That was two. Or three.

“Everyone is chill but me.”

“So chill out Harmony. It’s not that hard to do. Take a deep breath.

“Ok. I’m ok.” I go through this almost every time we smoke pot nowadays. I am little Miss Paranoia, but I can never convince myself that it is only paranoia. What if it’s like women’s intuition and something’s really is wrong? I am stoned, and therefore I am paranoid. I try to remind myself of this. But then I think, what if I’m more than stoned? What if it was laced with angel dust or strychnine or crack or formaldehyde and this really is the end of me? What if I never get to talk coherently to my mom again? Oh my god. I’m freaking out. Breathe, I remind myself. Regardless of the danger I am in, I must breathe.

“SHIT!!!!”

“Dude, Harmony. You’re ok. I’m ok. Everything’s ok.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Riley. There really is a problem.”

“What’s that?” Danny asks as he’s jumping around pretending to do skateboard moves without a skateboard.

“The car. We aren’t in a real spot!”

And we’re off running down the street to the car. We’re going too fast for me to concentrate on the steps. I watch my legs and they tickle because I know all of the muscle fibers are working and that tickles. Danny is yelling like some coach whether we should stop or go at intersections. Roddie passes him up and yells for Riley to give him the keys. “I’ll get there first!” he hollers. He chucks the keys to Roddie across 3rd Avenue.

Roddie misses the keys and they skim against the street and land against the curb. Danny grabs them and sprints the last block to the car. I can’t run anymore. Breathe, breathe. I can’t go any further. What if I can’t run because I’m dying? I’m almost there. Almost there. Keep it going. No one ever died from pot. There! I slam myself up against the car. I rest my head against the sun-warmed hood.

“Hey, the car is ok! Thank you, God. What if it had been towed? What if we had been stranded here? That would have been terrible.” I have to be home by 9 or else I’ll get grounded. I don’t say that last part out loud.

“Riley, slow down!” I grip the seatbelt’s shoulder strap. It locks tight. My mom told me they don’t pull dead bodies out of seatbelts. I hold on. “You don’t have to drive like a crazy person!”

“Do not critique my driving, Harmony. You should be kissing my ass for saving you from the lame-o’s on the bus. I’m doing this for you. Do you want to be late to first period? You should have been ready on time.”

“Oh come on,” I argue back. “I don’t have to act a certain way just cause you drive me to school. I don’t have to be indebted to you forever. It’s not that big of a deal. You have to go to work anyways. School’s on your way.”

“Yeah, well I look like a loser showing up there every morning. I should have something better to do. I graduated. I should be moving on.”

“Then why are you going out with a girl who’s not even an upperclassman yet? Huh? Maybe we should break-up for your image.”

“You always throw that break-up shit at me.”

“Yeah, well, slow down. It’s a red light.” He revs his engine twice before slowing down. School is about a block away. I brush my fingers through my Manic Panic Purple Haze hair and check my face in the visor mirror.

“You look beautiful, baby. Except wait.” The light turns green. But he doesn’t go. He holds up traffic at the stoplight to wipe a barely-there mascara smudge off my lower eyelid. The car behind us honks; he flips it off and squeals his tires as he flies into the school lot.

In the lot, he grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me in for a passionate goodbye kiss. The parent behind us is dropping off a freshman. I’m watching her through the side mirror as Riley smudges my lipstick with his face. The mother gives her dorky son a peck on the cheek. I wonder if she sees us. Riley lets me go. I grab my half-empty book bag, wipe off the red smudges, and hop out.

“Hey, Harm. Do you have to be here all day?”

“I don’t know. It’s only school. It’s optional right?” I smirk.

“Well, I was gonna make a run into the city for some kind bud, but I have to meet the guy before you’ll be out of class. Can I pick you up sixth period? Roddie and Danny are gonna come with.”

“Alright, meet me at the end of the street so I don’t get busted.”

“Cool baby, see you later.” I slam the door and feel people watching me as I walk inside. I’m special. I’ve got a man.

***

Riley drives the FDR as though he owns it. He wildly plunges around cars; speeding up then slowing down inches from their bumpers. It’s as if he’s got nothing to lose. Luckily most people have the sense to get out of his way pretty quickly. But if they don’t, he’ll stick to them like freakin’ crazy glue until they give in. I roll down the window to get some air on my face. A semi thunders past and almost clips off my nose. Riley grabs me back and says in his most robotic voice, “Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times.” I thank him for the original insight.

Danny, the one who usually makes the dumb jokes, laughs heartily in the back. He is always so loud. It’s like he woke up one day and decided that he was the funniest man alive. He probably thinks it’s a pleasure listening to him, like he’s doing us a favor. It’s like he’ll say something that he thinks is funny and wait for the laughs. I never give in. It’s so dumb. But Riley does. He laughs whenever Danny cues him. It reminds me of the line my mom used to say about the neighbor’s twins. “Two peas in a pod,” she said. Right now, Danny’s in the phase of saying the pledge of allegiance to anything that he likes, like a keg of beer. “I pledge allegiance to this keg,” etc. It bores me. I think it bores Roddie too, but he always seems bored. He’s like Danny’s alter-ego. Roddie is silent unless he has something of value to share—quality not quantity. Right now he’s gazing out the window at the East River. He’s so smart.

I rest my head on my arms and close my eyes over the open window. This morning was such a drama. No matter how fast Riley drives, I never seem to make it to class before first-period attendance. Today I got there about three seconds after Ms. Lurie put her pencil down, the one she uses to point at each person who says, “Here.” Mrs. Lurie hates me and so even though I showed up to class, she never marked me present. Then on my way out, after the bell, I tripped on some freshman’s monstrous backpack. Mrs. Lurie, of course, blamed me for not watching where I was going.