Onze Labs

Contents May Have Shifted During Flight

Dustin woke up 20 minutes before the plane was to land, jarred from a dream by a boy's clammy hand brushing his lips.  The lad's target had been Dustin's nostril, but a bit of turbulence bumped him off course. Dustin twitched when he awoke and his sudden shudder startled the boy, who hurried to explain why he was all but sitting in Dustin's lap.

    "You know you have a little thing in your nose that wiggles when you exhale?"

    The sound of the word "exhale" used in the same sentence with "a little thing in your nose that wiggles" and spoken in the voice of a cartoon lion cub threw Dustin more than the question itself. He mused over the paradoxical mixture until the woman sitting on the outside of the row turned her attention away from the aisle and exclaimed, "Alexander! Leave that man alone!"

    Still bewildered from being awoken with a hand in his face and instantly subjected to such a puzzling interrogation, Dustin shrugged his lips and settled his head back against the window. Alexander spouted earbuds linking him to a little white music box twice as big as his hands and settled back into his seat with his eyes closed. The woman leaned over him and touched Dustin's sleeve.

    "I just want to apologize for my son's atrocious behavior." Stuck in the disjointed and sluggish spell of his in-flight dream, all Dustin could manage in reply was to wave his hand and nod. She looked at him, appearing to expect more, but he just rolled his head back to the window, tried to find his bearings in the landscape below, looking for the landmark park in the center of the island. They weren't there yet.

                                                                          ~

    "How far are you willing to go to meet your true love?" the website yelled at him in bold letters. "Your chances of making good matches increases the broader the geographical parameters you choose" it continued in regular type. Dustin clicked the box that sent his profile all over the country.

    The website also strongly suggested – after Dustin had paid and filled out the questionnaire that generated a profile for him – posting a photo, but the only digital photos Dustin had of himself pictured him with a beard or 60 extra pounds.

    The most recent photo was two years old, taken six months after Terri had left. His face was heavy and sullen; he looked like he was about to fall into a bottle of vodka, burst out crying, or both. And when he signed up for the service he was still sporting a nasty scab on the left side of his face, a souvenir of a tumble from his bike. Still he had his friend Josh snap a photo, under the guise of wanting to document his injury. When Josh needled Dustin into telling him the real reason for the photo, he tried to dissuade him from posting it.

    "Dude. These chicks have their pick of, like, hundreds of dudes. They're not going to go for Scarface – put it this way: you don't want to go out with a chick who would go out with someone looking like you look right now. Save your money. Wait a month."

    Josh, who had never dated anyone for any longer than it took her to introduce him to her parents, was still the closest Dustin had to an expert opinion, so he believed him. But Dustin had already signed up, and his profile was already out there in the mix, and when he went back online to cancel his account he had a note from a woman in Manhattan named Nanci whose likes (food, art, outdoor sports) and dislikes (smoking, insecure people, party animals) were so like his he couldn't not reply.

    Nanci had posted four photos. The first was a little trite – she was smiling and leaning against a tree – but she looked attractive enough. And hey, scab or no scab, Dustin had to admit he was not one of any magazine's 50 most beautiful people. In the next photo Nanci was playing a violin and looking at a music stand. Dustin couldn't tell if she was playing a recital hall or just at home. The background was unclear.

    The last two photos drew Dustin deeper. In them he sensed a sexiness about her that was absent from the other two pictures. One showed her sitting on a set of outdoor bleachers, her elbows resting on her knees, a tennis racquet in her lap. The shine on her face showed she'd just finished playing. The photographer seemed to have caught her between heaving breaths. Her smile said she'd just won the match.

    In the last shot she was walking away from the camera, looking back over a bare shoulder, a beaded bag in one hand. Her bright red mouth was slightly puckered, and her eyes were saying, "Put down that camera and follow me."

    Dustin hadn't expected anything to come of his subscription, and certainly not this fast. His trial run in the dating scene had become a real game, and he didn't have the requisite equipment. He was sure he'd be disqualified.

    He and Nanci exchanged notes for a couple days, learning more common interests: She had grown up in the Midwest too, and he was often in New York on business; they both liked unknown films and bands; neither had ever been to South America but wanted to go. Then the question came.

    "Say, one friend of mine says maybe you're a famous actor and that's why you haven't posted any photos; you want me to know the real you. Another says you're probably on the lam from a bunch of other women and can't afford to be recognized. Which one is right? There's a dinner riding on this."

    Dustin sent Nanci the picture Josh told him not to share along with the sad sack shot and emptied everything into the email that accompanied them: The woman he proposed to said no and he sank into a cheeseburger- and booze-fueled depression that ended only when he saw that picture, didn't recognize himself, and started running and riding his bike — the bike which, two months ago, he fell off of training for a triathlon. 

    "And she bought it?" Josh's skepticism grew in proportion to Dustin's hope. "Dude. I'm telling you, beware. She's not the chick in those photos. Listen. She's crazy — she invited Scarface to stay with her for crissakes."

    "Josh, we're staying in a hotel. I don't know exactly where she lives or where she works—she's not giving it all up."

    "Of course not! She's untraceable! Man, you are so not seeing this."

    "What, you afraid I'm going to pick up and move to New York?"

    "I'm afraid you're going to die in New York, man, lose all your money, your dignity, get killed in New York before anyone can think about moving anywhere."

    Something Dustin couldn’t tell Josh: Someone already had killed him. You don't die that way twice.

    His sister Carrie answered all of Josh's fears when Dustin repeated them to her.

    "Don't make decisions for people, Dustin. You don't know if she's going to want to you move to New York—you don't know if she's even going to want you to stay the whole week. Nobody really knows for sure what they want until they have it — and then most people realize they don't want it after all.

    "Come on — what a great reason to go to New York. Even if it's a spectacular failure, what have you lost? You get a week in the greatest city in the world. And hello, look at it from her point of view: she's taking a chance on some klutz from the rust belt who doesn't have a decent picture of himself.

    "No matter what happens, it will make a great story — one I can't wait to hear. Go!"

                                                                           ~

    Dustin had been dreaming of Nanci, dreaming of her meeting him at the gate—which of course people can't do anymore; Dustin even told himself so in his dream. The dream Nanci was an amalgam of all four photos and also a new Nanci, all in one. He recognized her immediately, and he smiled and waved, but she didn't see him. She was studying the face of each man who passed her. When Dustin finally approached her, she gave him the same expectant look, but spent no more time staring into his eyes than she had with any of the others, passed on to the man following him. He walked on by, didn't stop or reach out to her or even call out her name. 

    That's when he awoke, to a hand on his mouth that smelled like pretzels and grape bubble gum.

    "You look tired." The mother wasn't done with him yet. "Have you been flying for business? Are you going home?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "We're going to visit my mother. In Brooklyn. She just moved there. Can you imagine? Moving to New York City at her age." The woman pointed to Alexander as if her mother's age were inscribed on him somewhere. "For a man, no less." She turned to look at Dustin squarely. "Are you married?" And immediately retracted. "I'm sorry. None of my business. Flying makes me nervous and when I'm nervous I blab."

    Dustin excused himself to go to the restroom.

    As he approached the lavatory Dustin began to see that the Nanci in his dream had also looked like that woman too. But that's the way with dreams: they incorporate the waking life — especially napping dreams, when the mind can't fully escape the outside world.

     So why hadn't the boy figured into it, too, the sticky, smelly hand right under his nose? Josh's voice argued with Carrie's voice and the two of them wrapped a net of words around him and he stood in the john until a gentle rap on the door startled him and a voice guided him back to his seat to prepare for landing.

    Alexander had scooted into Dustin's window seat and his mother had moved over beside him. Dustin buckled himself in on the aisle and wondered if he was up to this after all. He fell back into a daze and the world buzzed around him.

    When they reached the gate and the warning lights went off and the cautions about shifting baggage had been given and the connecting gates had been read, Dustin let his seat-mates leave, then sat for a minute before collecting his things. When he entered the Jetway he moved to the side, let those who knew where they were going pass him, took his time getting wherever it was he was on his way to.

Untitled No. 2

     The rain flushed the worms out of the earth, sent them squirming and slithering onto the sidewalks and into the street, fleeing the pond for the stream, wherever they went, going there to drown.

     The lanes through the park were full of them: pink squiggles, writhing, slithering, floating bloated threads. Feet moving faster than a saunter were destined to mash them, and where the plum blossoms matted to the eucalyptus blades, the simple creatures simply didn't have a chance.

     Those that made it to and over the curb dropped into a stream flowing to the storm sewers. Their vermicular side-winding a desperate dance, their valiant attempts to burrow a nose into the slit lining the gutter, futile. Whether riding the current, caught in the debris blocking the drain, or rushing out to sea, a dismal, waterlogged finish.

Riff

    The swish of tires rolling through puddles at the mouth of the alley recalls mallets thrumming a ride cymbal. A woman whose distinguishing characteristic is that she's over six feet tall, closes her eyes, takes a long, hard drag, and assembles a rhythm section from the available sounds. She tips her head back, draws in fresh air, and while she holds her breath she picks up a bass line in an idling Porsche, brightens a Cadillac's horn to the metallic plink of a Fender Rhodes.

    She improvises a languorous melody, which she hums, then she parts her lips slightly to release the smoke and the slow arpeggios resonate through the block-long alley, the notes rise with the stream of smoke. The asphalt shines under the glare of a streetlamp; water collected in a pothole reflects the light bulb and the hub of a car. She strolls deeper into the narrow passage, reaches her arms out toward the sooty, windowless brick walls as if to touch them, swings her bare string-bean legs to the sides, then back around in front of her with each step, clacks her heels for rim shots.

    She sidesteps around a mound of cigarette butts that someone formed with a toe while waiting for someone to emerge from the stage door. She stops singing. Listens. Song continuing in her head.

    It is a moment of calm between a raucous night and its aftermath.

    The alley fills with the noise of a dissonant engine she recognizes without turning around to look, but she does turn and holds her ground, her legs spread wide, two sides of an isosceles  triangle; arms akimbo, form two half-diamonds at her sides. The bedraggled white van stalls close enough to the stage door for the driver not to restart it and far enough away that the musicians, who now have to haul their instruments and equipment five extra yards, will complain. A man, his shape an 0 to the lady's 1, opens the door, drops to the ground, and slams the door at a point so far off the beat that the woman smiles. He walks by without appearing to notice her, pumps his beefy arms to help his short legs propel his squat body inside.

    "Hello, Joseph. Yes, it is a good evening. Nice to see you, too." She draws her hand to her mouth, inhales deeply and a peal of soprano laughter carries amorphous puffs of  smoke to the sky.

Hill Like a Sleeping Lady

    Most of the passengers are inside. The sky is clear, but the air over the bay is cool. The city ahead of them looks like a toy village. They are standing astern, and he turns back toward the bridge, its red-orange suspension cables forming an ironic smile. Her voice is lost under the motor's roar and the whistling wind. He looks right over the fantail at the hills they are leaving behind.

    Hey, you know that mountain is supposed to be a sleeping lady?

    His hair is the texture and color of straw. His leather jacket is studded with silver rivets. His nails are painted black.

    What? Are you listening to me? Did you hear anything I just said?

    Her hair is the color and shape of cotton candy. Her heavy black wool skirt dusts the tops of her jackboots.

    I said the worst pain is the first night, then it gets better. That's the way it was with my other ones. And this guy is really good. He's a professional.  He's had it done himself.

    The guy winces. I can't think about it right now. Can we talk about this later?

    Yeah, but later means tonight, you know. It's tonight, or you don't do it. Tomorrow the place won't be open before we leave. Look, I thought we were both going to do this, and I was hoping we'd do it in the same place I had my first one. It's fine if you changed your mind, but if you really want to do it, we should go right now, as soon as we get back to the city. We don't want to run up against the place closing again.

    She gnaws the cuticle of her right ring finger. She has been looking at him watching the mountain the whole time she spoke, and he still doesn't look at her now that she's done talking, and he doesn't say anything.

    OK. I've said this, like, a million times: if you don't want to do it, don't do it. She shifts her weight gingerly from one foot to the other. It's too cold out here. Especially with no… you know.

    He watches her touch her knees together. Her face is pained. He nods and turns away as she leaves. He stays outside a bit longer, staring at the mountain. He squints at it. Then he turns and goes after her.

    She is lying on a bench, her feet flat. Her knees are in the air waving side to side, meeting, then parting; meeting, then parting. The back of one wrist is on her forehead. Her other hand is pressing her lower abdomen into her thighs, one at a time.

    It's just…

    What?

    Well, it's like... Won't it get caught?

    Well, yeah… She speaks the last word as if there is a fermata on it.

    But that's the point. The idea is that it makes things, you know, more... intense. Definitely different. This is for both of us, right? That's what I thought we agreed. But if you don't want to do this, it's fine. I definitely don't want you to do it if you're not 100 percent comfortable with it.

    He snickers.

    What?

    That's a funny way of putting it: If I'm not comfortable with it. It's not exactly about being comfortable, is it?

    She sighs, her eyes closed, and slowly raises herself to her elbows.

    Do you want something to drink? Because I could use something to drink. Do you mind getting it? I don't really want to move.

    She unzips her purse and removes her wallet, but he waves her away before she can withdraw any bills.

    What do you want?

    Do they sell drink-drinks?

    He looks around at the family across the cabin. The girl is doling out cookies from a small package, one at a time to each of her parents. The mother is holding a large soda in one hand, a coffee in the other, which she passes off intermittently to the father.

    I doubt it. 

    She winces even before she moves, pushes herself up to a slouch, her weight way back on her tailbone, then with her hands planted on the bench she raises her pelvis off the seat and stands slowly, as he watches.

    I'll go with you. Sitting makes it worse.

    Imagine what that would be like if you couldn't wear a skirt. She freezes. He shrugs, doesn't look at her, jams his fingertips as far as they will go into his pockets. That's all I'm saying.

    And all I'm saying is you don’t have to do it. Forget it, already. I don't want to hear you go on and on; it's bad enough now, I don't think I could stand it if you actually went through with it.

    They are still standing by the bench. He is still looking at the family.

    Look, let's not even talk about this right now. She waddles toward the stairway that leads down into the boat, one hand on her thigh, one outstretched, grasping for a handhold. He watches her, nodding slightly, then follows her below deck.

Take It or Leave It

    The cashier was brand new and already had a following. A new guy stepped in every few minutes to introduce himself. The smarter ones were able to stretch things out by bagging slowly, talking to her as she scanned prices, just enough to slow her down a bit, not enough to make the customers mad. They prayed for obscure produce that required looking up the price code, crossed their fingers when they offered customers help out to their cars that the answer would be no.

    I was holding out for a miracle; first that the bread, cheese, rice, lentils, a box of cereal, four apples, a bottle of shampoo, and a jar of tomato sauce I cradled in my arms would total less than $10 and next that the register would not bleat disapproval when the cashier scanned my card. I was unable to conjure my bank balance on the inside of my eyelids. With a cushion of two people in front of me, I planned my getaway, in case.

    Whipping out another card would do no good. Copping indignation would only draw more attention to myself, alert more people to my indigence. I decided that the cashier wouldn't care, and the bag boys certainly wouldn't care, if they noticed me at all, so I would just smile, mutter an apology and calmly walk out. If it came to that.

    The gentleman being served disputed the price of his prescription. The young man up to bat froze, the dilemma limned on his downy face: to do her bidding and run back to the pharmacy to check the price, or to stay there, locked in a stare. She snickered and gave him a playful shove, and off he went. Another took his place before he turned tail. The gentleman decided not to wait for the drugs, snatched the rest of his purchase from the bagger's hand before the mooning lad could offer it.

    A bottle of cold medicine was all that stood between me and humiliation, and it didn't stand there very long, didn't take a bag.

    All the stress and pheromones were making me anxious, feeling like I needed a pick-me-up, a sedative, some kind of feel-good something something. While she picked each item off the belt and ran it before the laser eye, I considered the candy options, weighed chocolate alone versus chocolate and peanut butter or chocolate and coconut.

    It became clear that the cashier liked the latest flirter, because she kept making mistakes with my purchases. She rang the apples as bananas and charged me for the sauce three times.

    By this time the boy who'd gone to the pharmacy was back and trying to horn in on the tutorial, taking his time catching on that he was out of the running. I felt for him. I returned to eyeing the sweets. If the total was below $10, I'd add a candy bar. Customers behind me had caught on that that line wasn't moving and had migrated to other registers. I would have no audience. Relief.

    I had a candy bar in my hand, and the cashier asked if I wanted it. I asked for a subtotal first, and set it down because I didn't want to melt it in my hands. She scanned it. I said, no, I didn't want it until I knew what everything else cost. She hit the subtotal key, and quoted me $20. I asked to see the tape, and pointed out the mischarges. Her tutor relished the opportunity to teach her how to void a sale.

    The bag station being unmanned, someone came to fill in. He started to put my accumulated items into a bag. Another came to keep him company and to further distract the cashier from her chosen coach.

    My final total was $8.62, and I did not question it. She swiped my card. The tape jammed in the printer, and the trainer asked if I would mind waiting for my receipt. I told him I didn’t need one. He didn't offer to help me out with my purchase, but that was OK because, really, he already had. 

Icarus of Market Street

    I saw them from the southwest corner of Fifth and Market. They were sitting on a bench near the bus stop half way down the block on the other side of Market's four lanes, by the cable car turnaround. A man and two boys, sharing two ice cream bars between them, sharing a bench and yet not inhabiting the same space.

    The 5-year-old was standing on one end, talking or singing between bites; his 18-month-old brother sat between him and his dad. The elder was clearly enjoying a moment to himself, able to eat his own treat, not forced to share or let anyone hold it for him. He was free to smear chocolate on his face, pick his nose, wipe his hands on his pants.

    The father jabbered — to them, to himself, perhaps to the wind — and offered the baby periodic licks while catching the big drips as best he could. Distracted by a wailing siren, the big brother came dangerously close to planting his gluey stick in the puff of white hair atop a stooped lady's head. She was grinning at something herself, as oblivious to him as his father.

    Still across the street, I approached the crosswalk at mid-block and was close enough to hear, when traffic stopped, the sing-song talk, the tinkling laugh, the gurgling murmur studded with a few random real words, and the baritone that sounded like it had no setting for shrill. Or maybe I'm filling that in.

    The little one coughed and I started. The dad twisted around to him, lowered his face to the child and spoke. A bus stopped, blocked my view. It sat in the crosswalk through the light, and I waited for it to pass before stepping into the street.

    When the bus pulled away it revealed a slightly changed scene. The father was looking at his watch, then he looked left, then right; the bigger boy was talking to the lady he'd nearly christened; and the little one, in some baby reverie, was leaning his head and arms out over his knees, tempting gravity to pull him to the grimy bricks under his dangling feet. I had just missed the light, and called out over the traffic streaming between us, but was scarcely heard by the throng around me, for a blues guitarist spanked out a duh DUHN duh nah just then.

    When the crosswalk cleared the boy was on the ground and my heart punched my ribs and I opened my mouth to holler, but then my husband snatched him up, they both were laughing, the other one still chatting, and a dog was heading for the abandoned ice cream. I waited through one more light, waited to cross until I was sure they would recognize me.

Nara-Nara Land

    Behind the school set against a cerulean sky, on a strap of black rubber suspended with chains from a metal frame, she swings.

    Down the tiled hall that would echo a cat's steps, at a desk on which there are as many pens as there are papers to be written on, he stares.

    The swing squeaks twice on each round-trip: just before it reaches its zenith on the backward arc, and for the first third of its forward swoop; a creaky, mechanical iamb. Heart-beat.

    There is no time, there is only time, every single time she glides forward the air makes a balloon of her skirt. He flames. His palm sticks to spelling words.

    Through the cold hall, against the still sky, secrets ricochet to eternity.