Once you start stabbing people who deserve it,
where do you stop? So many worthy candidates.
Macbeth’s problem. At least he had a wife to blame.
There are always going to be witches,
cackling over cauldrons, to set you thinking,
woods to get lost in mid-life,
battles to come back from
with your mind on chores left undone
back at the castle, scores to settle,
slights to avenge. The moat needs draining,
the murder holes are low on oil,
and that distant relative chained
to the dungeon wall has a dentist’s appointment.
No need to question where these messages
come from, this clarity that allows you
to see through the steam rising off the cauldron,
see past the warts, the sneers
on the faces of the messengers.

“We can’t help you, sir.”

The smartly-dressed paralegal’s smile was fixed as she rose to show the conversation was over.

Kemp resignedly gathered up his files and walked out past a sign reading “Discount Divorces.  Egress for Less!!”

Inside, he fretted.

How difficult could it be?

It was an uncontested divorce, no custody disputes. . .

“And, heaven knows,” said Jillian, ever mischievous, “we won’t be fighting over the furniture.”

Kemp ignored her and kept turning the matter over in his mind.

Nothing hard.  Just one unusual factor.

“Oh, yes. Just that itty-bitty bump in the legal road.” 

Kemp pressed his lips together, twisting away at his wedding band.  He’d found a miserably spelled and pornographic love letter from Chuck Henderson in Jillian’s desk.  Enough was enough.

He kept walking, hitting every divorce mill along the way, talking to anyone who would listen.

Responses varied, and Jillian had a cherry-on-top snark for every one of them:

“But it isn’t necessary.”

“Oh, but it is,” whispered Jillian.

“Is this a joke?” 

“Obviously, she doesn’t know you,” said Jillian.

“Go away,”

“Now you know how it feels.” 

Kemp roamed downtown streets until he caught sight of a handwritten sign in a narrow window.

“We do divorces.  All kinds.  Even yours.”

It was the one true word.  The half-hidden door led Kemp into an old record store.  The long space was currently filled with para-professionals in matching blue jackets, toiling away at mismatched desks. 

“Ah, Mr. Kemp.  Sit down.  You have an unusual case?” 

The man was older, with grey hair and eyes.  His name was Mr. Selwyn.

“Yes.  I’d like to divorce my wife. ”

“Over a semi-illiterate golf pro with a bad moustache,” groused Jillian. “OK. And the pool boy with the limp.”

“But there is an impediment?  To the divorce?”

“Well, yes.  Jillian, you see. . . Jillian is. . . .”

Mr. Selwyn waited patiently.

“Oh, spit it out, willya?”

“Dead.  She’s dead.  Aneurysm.  Last March.”

Mr. Selwyn stared into the distance, tapping his fingers lightly on the desk.

“Your wife is deceased and you wish to divorce her?”

Kemp nodded hopefully.

“Postmortem family law is sticky.  The paperwork is $10 extra, I’m afraid, and you have to meet certain criteria.”

“He’s pulling your leg.  Enjoying himself.”  Suddenly, the voice was less female and playful.

Tired of her, and tired of himself, Kemp handed over the cash.

Mr. Selwyn continued briskly.

This has not been an easy piece to write, for it deals with a very odious category of people, those who are so unpleasant that, upon sight of them, many flee and hide. Are you such a person? Ah, you automatically declare “NO!” I assert, though, that you must study my words of sterling wisdom before you can be positive. Now let’s move on to today’s probing topic: How to tell when it’s time to work on your attitude and general demeanor. I proffer to you six ways you can tell:

(1) Just after you run a stop sign, yell obscenities out the window, and flip someone off, a cop stops you. The “Jesus is my Lord” and “Y’all have a great day” bumper stickers aroused strong suspicions that you were driving a stolen car.

(2) You overhear the kids you babysit begging their parents to let them stay: (A) with the  neighbor who stays drunk all the time, wanders around in a fog mumbling to herself, and just got out of prison or (B) at the local daycare they once went to daily, where the bigger kids (the ones with brass knucks) fought a lot over the little kids’ food and the owner sometimes called the police to restore order.

(3) The sight of you approaching can disperse a large crowd from the sidewalk or empty out the most popular restaurant in town in ten seconds flat—during lunch hour.

(4) Your own mama says she can’t go shopping with you because—well, she has a prior engagement… a headache… peas to shell… a hangnail… a feverish desire to watch “Lawrence Welk”… a very contagious illness…

(5) Your pastor—one of the godliest, most compassionate, peace-loving people alive— has a sore place on his tongue, from biting it, after every attempt to converse with you. (No, you won’t see his tongue—just him running in the other direction.)

(6) Your ninety-eight-year-old great-grandfather says it’s not a good time to come by because—uh, he’s going ice skating—and then mountain climbing… he can’t stand to miss a minute of “Dancing to the Oldies with Richard Simmons” reruns… he has to go to the gym to help some young guys with their power lifting… he needs to spend the evening alone looking for pictures and other mementoes you know he hasn’t looked at in fifty years…  

If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you must be really dull-witted. OOPS! So sorry! It’s terribly out of character for me to say things like that. I have to go now. I need to put some more bumper stickers on my car. 

I decided to go on Thursday night to the Buddhist talk at my temple, the Congregation B’nai Tsimmes. I managed to get out of work early, always a Nirvana-inducing feat, then high-tailed it home, ran three, showered, nuked and ate a health-conscious chicken pot pie, and set forth on my Siddharthan quest. Minya stayed home with the quads.

On the ten-minute ride to the temple, I fretted about whether I was wearing the right clothes; the flyer had said to wear “comfortable clothes and footwear,” but I wasn’t about to wear sweats to a place of worship. I wondered if I would know anybody there, or if some unseen underground, some Yid Falun Gong, would be the only members of the congregation who would go to something like this. I wondered how Rabbi Tbilisi had been persuaded to allow such a presentation, such tref, under his roof.

There were ten or twelve cars in the parking lot. At least I wasn’t the only meshuggeh. It was a pleasant evening. Fall was certainly coming, but it wasn’t here yet. I was, I hoped, “comfortable” in my jeans and T-shirt.

As I walked towards the temple, a black Miata buzzed into the lot, a Miata which could belong only to my long-time acquaintance, a man with whom I’d grown up, some thirty years since, in the old part of town, Mr. Harold Simchas-Torah. He, of the hyphenated name, the first such hyphenation I’d ever encountered, the product no doubt of his forward-thinking mother back in the sixties, was a black silk shirt, gold chain, gold bracelet Jew, always tanned, now on his second wife, Tsuki, a Japanese import. There was much to dislike or chide or dismiss him for, but yet, our mothers had been friends before us and we had been through much, and gotten high much, in the old days, and still occasionally, in the new.

He was not a rich Jew; hence the Miata and not a Mercedes, but he was not a poor Jew as I had been, relatively speaking, in our little town in the old days, and he flaunted whatever riches he could. He was still a terrific source of high-quality marijuana.

In fact, he motioned me over to his car as he drove past, and when his window rolled down, that familiar sweet smell greeted my largish nose.

“Harold, you’re getting stoned for a Buddhist meditation session,” I said, tsk-tsking all the while.

“Yeah, you want some?” Smoke he was trying to hold in escaped through his teeth as he held up a still-smoking half joint.

“No, for God’s sake,” I replied. “Although, maybe afterwards…”

It was a nice night, after all. It wouldn’t be so bad to be high.

Harold shrugged and took another puff. I scanned the parking lot guiltily. Birds twittered and chirped. Crickets cricked.

“Are you coming?” I asked.

He nodded and snuffed out the joint. His window rolled up, and he got out of the car. He brushed ashes off himself, off his pants, which were a satiny black loose-fitting thing with a sash or a drawstring or something.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be interested in this sort of thing,” I said. “And I can’t believe you got high for it. Well, actually, I can believe that.”

We walked towards the doors, he just slightly unsteadily.

“It’s a way to get out of the house,” he said.

I held the door for him, and we stepped inside. The bird twitter was gone, replaced by an echoey silence, fluorescent-lit and vaguely sepulchral. There was a glass case full of Jewish doodads for sale, pins of Torahs and Chais, little mezzuzzi, little stone Ten Commandments, large plastic noses and whatnot. There was a cloakroom beneath a stairway leading up into the Hebrew school where I used to do battle. Near the door to the sanctuary was a sign for tonight’s talk with an arrow pointing down the hall. I showed Harold and pushed him in that direction.

Still bathed in gleaming Hebrew light, we made our way down a long hallway I’d never been down to a small conference room I’d never known was there. Jewish-themed drawings and paintings and gluey collages done by the Hebrew school students lined the hallway walls.

Harold paused before a very colorful picture of something or other.

“I like this one,” he said.

“Come on, putz,” I said. “We’re late.”

“Fuck you,” he said, probably audibly to the people in the conference room as we pushed open the double doors.

On the seventh day God rested, so Sunday dinner was up to Lucifer. While chewing enthusiastically and explaining to his angels that, for much of the beginning of human history, his most confusing creation would believe their planet was not only flat but the center of the universe (to hearty chuckles all around) God ate in contentment. But, towards the end of the meal, the creator abruptly began to brood. Seeing his lord staring off, his hairy jaws full but no longer moving, Gabriel asked what was wrong.

“Well,” God both swallowed and answered hesitantly. “It’s the food.”

“Oh, I did I burn it again?” Lucifer asked. More laughs around the picnic table stretching across the clouds.

“No, no, it’s just…” God ran his tongue over his teeth and cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve had an epiphany—it just struck me where these ribs come from.”

God dropped the bone, still sporting a bite or two of glistening meat and dribbling pink juices, to his plate. It clattered down the pile of a half-dozen others, all scratched white with teeth marks. He pushed the plate away.

“It’s not just meat,” God explained to his heavenly host—who suddenly looked very skeptical. “This is meat that rightfully belonged to a living thing. I… I think it’s wrong to eat it.”

“Well, it’s too late to make it up to Adam now,” Lucifer remarked, trying to laugh off the unexpectedly heavy mood and pointing to the blood-stained cooler by the grill.

God, however, would not be moved.

“No more meat,” he proclaimed, rising from the table and scrubbing his mouth. The angels stared at one another.

The creator’s new diet, however, was harder to maintain than he expected, and he often cheated. God was at times surprised, if not embarrassed, at his own taste for flesh. Scattered crumbs of minced Eve-and-forbidden-fruit pie littered the refrigerator early one morning. Half an Abel wrap was discovered in the crisper, hidden under an untouched bundle of kale. When confronted, God shrugged off his inconsistent culinary convictions as trivial. Later, alone and racked with guilt, the heavenly father would swear off meat for whole days at a time.

But these bouts of nearly-zealous vegan fervor only ended in gluttonous splurges. The discrepancy began to irritate the angles, especially Lucifer, who possessed not only a passion but a real knack for cooking. But what was safe to prepare? When a long meat-abstinence triggered a craving for stew in the creator, God would nearly drown the earth in order to sate his greedy hankering, and Lucifer scrambled to fill the largest pot he could find. Yet forty days later, just as the devil finished packing the freezer with god-only-knows how many meticulously labeled Ziploc bags, God insisted the entire store be disposed of, thrown out as unclean.

Another long gastronomic sabbatical ended with the roasting of two whole cities.

“At least watch your sodium,” an alarmed cherub begged, winching as the boss dashed a second and then third sprinkling of Lot’s wife over his plate.

Meat was proclaimed taboo once more, but the very next day God bought himself a jerky dehydrator. He claimed it was for preparing home-made raisins and banana chips, but instead of the smell of dried fruit, it was the tangy odor of Job, slowly curing, that soon hung in the air.

In frustration, Lucifer quit heaven to open a restaurant, which, to God’s chagrin, became appallingly popular. A diet of sinners, carefully portioned with whole-grain, fruit, vegetables and plenty of water in-between meals kept God’s formerly-favorite cook in fine shape—a condition Satan himself attributed equally to a lack of agitation.

“If you’re constantly stressed over what you eat, you wind up eating exactly what stresses you out,” the restaurateur told his customers with a wink. He also made no secret that he would love to treat his old employer to an evening of elegant, health-conscious dining, on the house, just to bury their past.

God (himself more and more noticeably overweight despite his repeated condemnation of meat products) ignored the invitation and tried to denigrate his ex-friend’s business whenever the topic came up. He picked at little things—claiming the building’s thermostat was kept too high, for example. Meanwhile, God began to spin downright wild rationalizations to sanctify his untamable appetite.

“If you really want to break yourself from meat,” the Lord chuckled to Gabriel as he studied the earth below and twisted the end of his beard between his fingers, “you have to visualize yourself as the poor creatures you would eat… if you were not able to keep your commitment up, that is. Yes, you have to put yourself on the same level with the poor things… you’re really one of them… they are you.”

God reached his might finger down and squeezed his limitless spirit into a tiny, squalling body swaddled in a feed trough. His gaze lingered on the human parents to his meaty, fostered child, feeling only good will towards man and no, not one ounce of hunger. But when three kings and a group of shepherds crowded into the stable, the Lord’s mouth began to water. God shivered and pulled his trembling hand back into the clouds—but opened his fist with a groan. He had, without quite meaning to, snatched up a generation of Hebrew first-born sons from Herod’s kingdom. Only the promise he made to himself that this was absolutely the last time he would consume babies (they had never set well in his belly anyway, those Egyptian newborns of Pharaoh’s nation, and later, the infants his conquering Israelites tossed from the fortress walls of the Samarians and Midianites, from the watchtowers of Amalek and Babylon) allowed God to eat without feeling too guilty.

Thirty years later, the devil came to Christ in the desert, to invite him to dinner. Satan could reserve a table for parties of twelve or larger any time, no waiting. And the Passover special: disciples eat free. God, in human form, turned stoically away.

Still, the offer hung in his mind. Reservation taken care of. No waiting. Now, that was service. Hoping no one would recognize him, God crept through the doors of Satan’s establishment, intending to order a simple dish, perhaps just a salad. But, after being seated and welcomed personally by the owner, God began to feel more and more humiliated. Did Lu’ have to grin so broadly and greet him so loudly? The occupants of the surrounding tables were staring. God considered standing up and walking out right then.

Instead, in a revelation of spitefulness, the Lord decided to order the most complex dish he could imagine: himself. Without a moment’s hesitation, not even a blink, the host dismissed himself to the kitchen to prepare the meal personally.

God sipped his ice water and smirked to himself. Let the arrogant upstart cook that! He would fail, of course, emerge from the kitchen, humbled, and beg to return to his old post. Yet, as he stabbed a lemon wedge underneath the ice chips in his glass with his knife, doubt crept into God’s mind. He heard his fellow diners whisper over their plates, but he could not make out the words. Had this challenge been a miscalculation? Had his hunger, once again suppressed to the point of reason-obliterating craving, clouded his better judgment? Of course he wouldn’t eat a thing—even if anything was placed before him, which was unlikely. But, just as a precaution, God deftly removed his fork and spoon, still wrapped in the immaculate cloth napkin, from the table and hid them along with his knife inside his billowing, white robe.

As if upon cue, his cook marched through the double swinging-doors of the kitchen in a cloud of savory steam, carrying a covered, silver tray. A heavy, sweet odor followed.

God, his dish before him but no cutlery at hand, found himself gripping the thin, soft cut of flesh with his large fingers. As if in a dream, he closed his eyes and took a bite.

A jab of pain broke this trance before it could even settle in. The delicate slice of meat had slipped through God’s hands and lay on the floor. He had knocked over his water. The horizontal parentheses made by the bite-mark on the side of his right index finger stared back at him.

Stumbling from his table while muttering an apology and waving away the dessert menu with a growl in nearly the same harried breathe, God charged out of the restaurant. On the way home, terrible thoughts assailed him: the repercussions, the echoes of this hunger reverberating through the earth, his act of cannibalism exalted, re-enacted, magnified… He could hear them now, his lost, hungry lambs, singing in the fields, on the altars. With this bread, with this cup…

Before returning to Paradise and locking the door behind him, God stopped to devour Stephen with such voracity as to nauseate even the hereto iron-stomached Saul. How thankful he was for the conscience-muting grogginess, even if it was accompanied by that all-too-familiar swollen feeling extending from his gut right up to the back of his throat.

Though it’s no mace, but cell phone in my hand,
I’d like to favor you. But I’ve a slew
of messages whose import countermand
desires of my awestruck retinue
who pass me with petitions on the street.
Because of this, I claim the royal right
to read my e-mail following a tweet
to devotees while you keep me in sight.
Indeed, not only are my hands not free,
but texting makes it difficult to turn,
acknowledging those holding doors for me.
Thus, I can’t give the gratitude you yearn
for who suppose a royal highness grants
indulgence to her abject sycophants.

Pete, my roommate, is a strikingly handsome guy; he’s tall, blonde, strong, jovial, and he’s equipped with what a girlfriend of mine once described as, “A face to die for.”  My girlfriend.  She said that about Pete, to me.  Thanks, honey.

Pete’s got this problem, though.  Pete only dates crazy people.  I know what you’re thinking: “Women, am I right?”  No, you’re wrong.  I mean, wait, Pete dates women, yes, but not in the “all women are crazy” sense.  The women Pete finds are straight-up straightjacket insane.  Like “throw lobster carcasses at people” crazy.  At a wedding reception, this girl is taking hollowed lobster exoskeletons out of the garbage and throwing them at people screaming, ‘Lobster zombies!’  Classy.  One girl worked for the Jerry Springer show, but she was crazier than the people Jerry interviewed.  She threw wine in my face.  In real life.  Not on a scripted sitcom, in real life.  One girl left her shoes at my dad’s house.  She walked out barefoot.  She must have realized she forgot her shoes as soon as she stepped outside.  Did she turn around and get them?  No, she just left.  Then she yells at me for not bringing her her shoes.  These women are borderline disastrous, but Pete falls hard for them.  Real hard.  So when Pete starts dating this girl, Kristin, I’m understandably wary. 

Kristin is a tall, blonde, beautiful, smart, educated woman.  She is a nurse.  She seems fantastic for Pete.  She seems too good to be true.  Pete is smitten, but that’s nothing new.  If anything, that makes my skepticism more acute.  She’s funny, articulate, energetic, and caring.  It seems like she actually cares about what Pete thinks and feels.  I’m onto you, crazy!  I’m not letting my guard down that easy.  You can’t fool me.  We’ve been down this road before.  I’ll figure out your deal.  Don’t think I’ll let you slowly suck Pete’s soul whilst I sit idly by.  Just because you’re sleeping with Pete, don’t think I’m not watching you.  Wait.  Not like that.  You know what I mean.

She’s not sleeping with Pete.  Pete tells me she’s been hurt before and doesn’t want to jump into anything.  Pete’s been hurt before, but he’ll jump into anything, so this is probably good for him.  I’ll allow it.  For now.  Months pass, and she still doesn’t spend the night.  I decide it’s time to tell Pete that he’s been friend-zoned.  Kristin probably thinks Pete is her gay best friend.  Pete’s been mistaken for gay before.  Jigs up, woman!  Over some Scotch, I tell Pete the bad news.

She has been sleeping with Pete.  Apparently, that development came to pass with no one asking my permission.  Fine.  I just didn’t notice, because she doesn’t sleep with Pete.  She does not spend the night.  This must be it.  She must be a vampire lady!  She must stalk the night, attacking people on the street under cover of darkness instead of under Pete’s covers.  Pete explains that she simply isn’t comfortable sleeping over.  I don’t mind.  Let her sleep over.  But apparently, nobody was waiting on my permission for this, either. 

No, it’s not the propriety of the situation,”  Pete clarifies. “She’s not comfortable.  Like, my bed sucks.”

This makes sense.  Pete’s bed is old.  It has stains on it.  It has an uneven landscape.  Like the moon,  it’s covered in overlapping craters.  It was probably in this house before Pete was.  It was probably Pete’s dad’s bed growing up.  Well, I’m not losing sleep chasing her through the night to prove her insanity.  I can use this to my advantage.  I’ll let her come to me.  I formulate a devious plan to reveal her nocturnal psychosis.  I initiate my espionage with a casual, “You should get a more comfortable bed.” Now, with my plan fully in motion, I wait for the trap to spring.

Pete gets a new bed.  An expensive new bed.  A fancy futuristic bed.  Space foam!  A mattress with its own memory!  Like a computer!  A slab of NASA-engineered sleep induction.  I felt drawn to it.  I wanted to feel its power.  I lay down on this twenty-first century incubation system just to feel the capabilities of such a mattress and, without realizing it, the bed transported me several hours into the future.  Let’s see this pretty little sorceress get out of this one.

That night I was working downtown.  I work late, and by the time I bicycle home, it’s three in the morning.  Her car is in the driveway.  It’s quiet.  Too quiet.  Hmmm.  Is she sleeping?  Is she sane?  Am I wrong about her being an evil succubus that terrorizes the night?

I eat dinner when I come home from work.  That’s normal for me.  I make soup.  I always make soup.  Soup is easy on the tummy, which is crucial when you eat so late.  I open and close a bunch of cupboards, I listen to music, I flip through the selection of cauldrons with which to bubble my toil and trouble.  The stove click-click-clicks­ before coming to life.  The microwave beep-beep-beeps tolling the defrosting of the chicken.  I hum to the music as the beans clink-clink-clink into the pot.

I’m stirring my boiling soup when I hear a new sound.  A creaking of the floorboards.  I glance into the living room.  A figure is approaching me!  “AAAHHHHH!”  I composedly respond as my arms flail out and my footing forsakes me.

“AAHHH!”  Responds the apparition, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,  oh jeez!  Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.  Are you okay?”

Kristin lunges into the kitchen to strike me down in the night!  The crazy lady has lain her own trap!  I’m the victim of another folly of Pete’s love life!  Or, rather, she’s reaching to help me to my feet.  We grasp hands.  She lifts me.  Cannellini and quinoa cascade off my bathrobe as I stand.

“Sorry,”  she says, “I just couldn’t sleep, I think I’m gonna go home.”

“It’s late,”  I say, “why don’t you stay?”

Suddenly, in my mind’s ear, I rehear the clicks, beeps, and clinks.  I relive the clanging of cookware and the clapping of cupboards; noises that Pete, being a deathlike sleeper, has never heard or brought to my attention.

“Did I wake you?”  I ask.

“No, it’s your house, you’re fine.”  She lies.  “Let me help you clean up this mess.”

“No, it’s my house, you’re fine.”  I say.  “Go get some sleep.”

I clean my dinner off the floor thinking on this revelation.  She’s not leaving in order to torment the souls of the living in the night.  The only banshee haunting this house is me.  I look up and picture the layout of the house.  Pete’s bedroom is directly above me.  I’m ashamed.  I feel about as small as one of the peas in my soup pot.  The twentieth-century-space-age mattress is directly above, and what keeps her awake is this one little pea. 

That’s how you test for a princess, right?

They’re getting married in July.

“Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” – Luke: 12:37

 I text my girlfriend: “Maybe the menus are carved in stone.”

A sophisticate in the waiting area talks on his cell, and gapes at a meat slab on a rotating spit. A teenage boy with jeans tighter than a court jester’s leggings detaches from his phone and snorts as a meat-bearer—they call these guys “gauchos”—passes him.

Here at the bar, the carvings in the crown molding have all the refinement of a shore of bludgeoned seals. And that wainscoting? With the decorative edges? What century am I in?

I go to MCA’s website to check out the latest exhibit. The hostess whose lips look like she’s rubbed them on a newly-slaughtered calf interrupts me. “How do you like your Forzy? I just got the PM4.”

Surprising. I thought she’d be communicating via oatmeal canisters and string, yet here she is with a Forzy one model ahead of mine. I cover my eyes and reach out. “I can’t see. The light. It’s bouncing off your face.”

She laughs. It’s okay: they pay her to flirt.

My girlfriend texts me back: “Growl 3x.”

Surely the designer of this place would call the curving feature wall of faux stone “warm.” I call it “worn.” And the nubs that jut from the walls and ceiling make me think of a medieval torture chamber.

They give these places these sophisticated, foreign-sounding names, and they walk around with impaled meat. It’s kind of like hanging a painting of a Nebraskan landscape in a contemporary art museum. You just don’t do that.

I am a vegetarian, and, unfortunately, I am here, at a downtown Chicago Brazilian steak house called Chama Noite—that’s Portugese for “Night Flame”—to celebrate Timmy’s fortieth birthday.

Timmy and I are volunteer docents for the Chicago Architectural Guild. Most of those who go on our tours know of one architect: Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Prairie style continues to imprison the aesthetic judgment of the average Joe.

I spend over eight hours a day writing about design. You’d think I’d be somewhat of an authority on Chicago architecture, but you’d be surprised at how many accountants and housewives are also architectural critics eager to educate me.

Most of those on my tours come from the same type of communities about which I often write: the ones that try to recreate a past that never existed. And these tourists love to brag about their homes’ antiquated styles: French Victorian, Georgian, English Tudor, and above all, Prairie. The word “humble” is often associated with the Prairie style, but in my experience, “humble” is to “Prairie style” as “chic” is to “Nebraska.”  

An agonizingly ornate gilded frame shackles the mirror behind the bar, and the wallpaper has an early American primitiveness.

Among the sophisticates at the bar are a woman interned with makeup, a pinstriped fat guy who must have discovered a time warp while bootlegging gin, and a guy with a huge belt and baggy pants—perhaps a stonemason, or a falconer—prepared to gorge themselves with filet mignon, ribs, and bacon-wrapped beef medallions until they can’t walk.

I could be on my treadmill now, watching a film (something minus the explosions and special effects that these people no doubt require) on my 65-inch LED-LCD TV.

Timmy’s in the toilet room, and none of the other docents are here yet. Ten of us were invited.

The guy in pinstripes drinks a beer—or maybe it’s an “ale”—whose fonts look like they’ve been lifted from an 18^th century bear baiting poster.

The stonemason/falconer wears Converse All Stars. Hey Susie, let’s head over to the soda shop. He has a Forzy. Red. How cultivated. PM2, I think. My company hasn’t given me a PM5 yet. Probably because I’m a writer in a visual field. A picture is worth a thousand words? People who say that usually suck at writing. The other day, Hank, one of our nearly illiterate PM5 bearers, expounded on the brick and copper detailing of his Arts and Crafts-style train station while devouring a bacon double cheeseburger. At least the station wasn’t Prairie style.

Timmy, with the poise of a wooly mammoth, approaches from the other side of the bar. His stomach swells from a T-shirt he must have purchased at the gift shop. It says, “We shall have our meat!” He lifts three fingers from his Old Style to point at the crown molding. “Reminds me of Sullivan.” He belches.

I often picture Sullivan staring into the toilet, drawing inspiration for his next ornate pattern. Perhaps Sullivan’s buildings inspire one of my most popular tour questions: “There a bathroom round here?”

Dear Mr. Shakespeare:

Sir, some are convinced that your wisdom and creative genius are unsurpassed; others believe someone else is writing those so-called masterpieces that bear your name. To point 2 above, I say “Sir Francis Bacon? Christopher Marlowe?” To point 1, I say “Baloney!”

I have waded through your most recent  bloodbath, Macbeth, which you recently proffered for publication. Having recovered from several nightmares about drowning in an ocean of blood, I am ready to respond.

Since I can’t address every weakness in this lurid “historical” drama, I will focus on specific areas of character and plot development and your reference to this play as ” historical.”  I’ll begin with the wildly unrealistic and shoddy development of your main character. Macbeth morphs practically overnight  into a rabid serial killer with a sword drawn for anyone who crosses his path. Why? It all starts when three witches predict kingship for him, and his wife then asks him to kill King Duncan. Princes stand between Macbeth and the throne, but —swayed by the words of four hags — he kills the ancient king, whose mutilated corpse becomes the first in an astronomical body count. By this point, you’ve added asinine reasoning to faulty character development.

Last, I will address the classification of Macbeth as a “historical”  tragedy. Historical? PUH-LEEASE! To say that most of this drama is historically inaccurate is an understatement. First of all, Duncan, whom you describe as an elderly, highly-respected, good king, was in reality a brash, young, arrogant, spoiled brat who served Scotland very poorly and whom Macbeth killed in battle (not while he slept). Also, Macbeth was not killed by Macduff, who did not then become king. Do I agree that the play is a tragedy? Well, it would be tragic if I agreed to publish it!

I relish the opportunity to do my part to save the world from Macbeth. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. With this rejection, I offer sound advice concerning your future means of livelihood. Slaughterhouses are always looking for reliable workers. They offer only animals, but you would still get to see torrents of blood.

Honestly,

Ben Jonson
Senior Editor
Macduff Publishing

An Address Delivered at the East Orange Women’s Conference

First of all, I wanted to go. Adam was the one who wanted to stay. If it was up to him, we’d still be there, spending eternity in mind-numbing peace and tranquility, every day sunnier and cheerier than the previous. Sure, it was Paradise, but Paradise gets old real fast without any contrast. Besides, it wasn’t Paradise with a guy like Adam. Bloated with his First Man persona, he thought it was he and only he who should name all the creatures that walked on land and swam in the sea. And they were the most boring names. Completely lacking in imagination. Carp? Seriously?

In those relentless sun-filled days, Adam used to say that everything with me had to be “now,” and he was right. We could stay in that garden forever, safe from the ravages of time, but something in me was burning to know. What were the ravages of time? Adam could sit contemplating his toes, but I’d choose a direction and walk, trying to find the boundaries to our prison.

Eventually I remembered: The Tree. Smack in the center of our world. Gigantic claws dangling round red fruit. God gave us everything but one. Forbidden fruit, my ass. I may have been the first, but anyone with sense could see how it would turn out. Whenever someone forbids you to do something, they might as well be twisting your arm to do it.

So I stared at The Tree all day every day, those huge red orbs imploring me to sink my teeth into their bloodless wisdom. I stopped going on scouting missions. In short, I became obsessed. I invited Adam under The Tree’s shade, but coward that he was he stayed away. In an attempt to distract me, Adam threw me a bone, letting me name one of the quadrupeds. Jackass. He could sit there twiddling his toes in a warm afternoon breeze forever. Not me. I wanted excitement, drama, things impossible to come by in Eden . I was languishing under the thumb of splendor and I had to escape. Growing uneasy, Adam plied me with bananas, oranges, and kiwis, offered me coconuts, pineapples, and mangos, but I wanted none of these. Their taste would not satisfy. I wanted The Fruit.

What I find most grating is that they say a snake convinced me to eat it. A self-serving lie to undercut my feminine power. There was no snake.[1]

They also say I tricked Adam into taking the first bite. But why wouldn’t I have been the one to take it? Me, the one who wanted out. To say I tricked him implies I was hedging my bets. No. I alone decided, and I alone acted.

That night, while Adam snored, I paced up and down on my usual bed of fragrant daffodils. No matter how heavily I trod on them, their flawless yellow heads sprang back up, twitching with delight. Soft breezes caressed my face, carrying the unbearably sweet smell of honey. Tears of fury blinded me. I tore the daffodils from the ground, and their petals scattered, dancing toward The Tree. I followed.

I didn’t even need to reach up. The branches seemed to bend toward me. And I’d barely swallowed before I was filled with an awareness of myself impossible to describe since it is the birthright of all humankind and we don’t know what it is to be without it.

Now, the question I’m most often asked involves what I call the Naked Revelation. Sin of pride be damned. When I saw my body, I wanted to show it off. So after about ten minutes of my new perspective on Adam without gaining mutual regard, I sliced up some of the Fruit and mixed it in his cereal. (Okay, this definitely counts as tricking him.) As soon as he ate some, I saw a glimmer of intelligence come into those long dull eyes, and Adam seemed to look at me for the first time. What came over him then was that sudden stillness that lets a woman know when a man is in her power, yet makes her willing to suspend it.

After the experience of what, in the interests of discretion, I’ll call a more sophisticated, because short-lived, version of paradise, Adam became self-conscious and wanted to cover himself. The infamous fig leaves were his idea. He wanted me to wear them, too, but I refused. While he occupied himself fashioning rudimentary garments, I filled up on the Fruit, preparing.

When our Maker came, it took him quite a while to sense something was up. And he may never have known if Adam hadn’t been darting behind trees, trying to hide. That’s the thing that gets to me. He didn’t know. Mr. All-knowing, all-seeing. Mr. Unmoved Mover had no idea what we’d done until he saw Adam, the evidence of our disobedience plastered all over him in the form of strategically placed fig leaves. That’s the real reason we got kicked out. Spite. Because he didn’t know until Adam told him. And then he withdrew into the heavens.

Change was immediate. The sky blackened into a glorious bruise as the wind raked ecstatically through my hair. His bully angels chased us out of the Garden with sharp implements. Jewels of blood rose on my skin, causing a pain I savored. That day I knew what suffering was, and I knew that ever after when I saw a nice sunset or felt a cool breeze on my face I would appreciate it.

I’ve seen the artists’ renderings. They don’t do me justice. Adam was the one crying, not me. On that morning of God’s wrath delivered, I walked out of Eden head held high and exultant, ready for the world.

1 The snake was inserted into the story later as a function of religious strife. The Israelites wanted to discredit the Canaanites, whose religion aligned the snake with their goddess deity. So their use of a snake as a plot point rests somewhere on the continuum between propaganda and public relations. Eat from The Tree of Knowledge and you learn a few things.