Stories and Articles by J. Timothy King

A Tribute to Lorelai

timk — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0700

I bet you thought she didn’t exist,
Laura’s nemesis.
I swear, I’ve met her.
I’ve stared her in the eye,
And she is death.

She spins a careful web.
She is never wrong.
Artful, she lures the victim.
Graceful, she quaffs his breath.

He knows not how nor why.
The more he fights, the worse his bind.
He is a weeping husk.

This is, to her, normality.
Life is a myth.
Real is conformance and pow’r.

Yet I pray Mia will take me in,
That I might live again.

I wrote this poem in the midst of a bad job, a dysfunctional employer-employee relationship. Everyone says they appreciate ingenuity, initiative, and individual personality— Who wouldn’t? But in practice, some companies are just plain intolerant toward their employees. Dress used to be the bugaboo of the corporate world. Now it’s operational conformance: You will not improve the process. You may be yourself, but you will fit in. Or else you will leave. I left, to work at a tiny, fast-paced company, the entire staff of which could fit into a large conference room. And I’m motivated and happy again. -TimK

Abigail White

timk — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 00:00:00 -0700

She never imagined that this would be the defining moment of her life.

Born Abigail Little, she had grown up with platinum blonde hair and deep brown eyes. As a teenager, she obsessed about her appearance and social behavior. She was smart and pretty, funny and good-natured. She was the girl every boy wanted to kiss and every other girl wanted to be.

As an adult, she married and mothered. Crow’s feet etched their way around her eyes, and though still potentially attractive, looks mattered progressively less to her. She bought nice clothes for her children; sweats and sneakers for herself. Her hair became frizzy and wiry. She put all her energy into her family, all her time into her home.

When the kids were old enough for school, she took a job as groundskeeper at a local amusement park. She was always cleaning up someone else’s mess, but she didn’t mind. In fact, it was an honor, for she knew the story of the broken window. It has been said a building can be vacant for years without becoming dilapidated, until even a single window gets broken; and then the whole building will become uninhabitable within days. Abigail knew that just one piece of trash, and her entire world would begin to disintegrate.

It was this passion she threw into her work. As a result, she was late one day. She was late picking up the kids from their after-school program. She got bawled out. Actually, the woman was very nice to this overworked mother. But Abigail couldn’t see it any other way. She had failed her duty.

It was then she realized, she was being controlled by circumstances. She had lost the excitement, her passion for life, her passion for her own life. She lived for everyone else, where she had once lived for herself.

The next day, she blew off work. She got in the car and drove across the state. Then she walked into the First Bank of Everytown, U.S.A., she walked up to a teller, pulled out her gun, and demanded they fill the satchel with cash.

Carolyn and Amanda in the Dark

timk — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0700

Joanna T. Knight is a pseudonym. It’s also an anagram of Jonathan T. King (which is also my name). -TimK

Once there were two bears named Carolyn and Amanda who were sisters and best friends.

One night, after their mother and father tucked them in and turned out the light, Amanda suddenly realized her night light wasn’t shining.

“Carolyn,” she said to her older sister, “I can’t see, because the night light isn’t working.”

“Don’t worry,” said Carolyn. “It probably just needs a new light bulb. We can fix it tomorrow. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the daytime.”

Amanda closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. But she kept feeling someone in the room watching her.

She opened her eyes and looked carefully around the room. In the dark shadows, she saw something with long, skinny arms, wearing a hat, sitting on her desk chair.

She whispered at her sister, “Carolyn! A ghost!”

Carolyn sat up in a daze. “Huh? Where?” she asked.

“Right there! On the chair!”

Carolyn squinted at the shadows. “It’s just your hat and coat. You hung them there before you went to bed, remember?”

Amanda looked again. Her coat sleeves looked like the long arms of something sitting in her chair, wearing her hat.

“Oh,” said Amanda.

“Just try to go to sleep.” And Carolyn lay back down and rolled over.

But as soon as Amanda closed her eyes, she heard a noise outside the window. It went screech—tap tap tap, screech—tap tap tap.

She opened her eyes wide and shivered. The sound came again screech—tap tap tap, screech—tap tap tap.

“Carolyn?”

“What?” mumbled her sister.

“I think a monster is trying to get in our window.”

“It’s just the wind blowing the tree outside. Sometimes it scrapes against the house. Please, relax and go to sleep.”

So Amanda tried again to go to sleep. She closed her eyes and listened.

She heard a sound in the hallway. Pat pat pat pat pat.

It was getting closer. Pat pat pat pat pat.

Amanda couldn’t move. Pat pat pat pat pat.

And then it scurried across her bed and up into her lap!

Amanda bolted upright and screamed. She screamed as loud as she could.

And as fast as he could her kitty cat Whiskers ran off her bed and out of the room.

By this time, the whole house was awake. Amanda’s father came running into the room and turned on the light. “What happened?” he asked.

Amanda was crying. “My night light isn’t working, and I thought Whiskers was a monster and was coming on my bed to eat me.”

So he hugged her, and he tucked her in again and turned out the light.

He sat next to her and stroked her hair. “We can fix the night light tomorrow. But what you should do tonight is think about happy things. What kind of happy things do you like to think about?”

“How about rainbows?” asked Carolyn.

Amanda liked that idea. “Yeah,” she said, “and candy.”

“And birthday parties.”

“Ooh. And balloons in animal shapes!”

So Amanda closed her eyes and thought about rainbows and about candy, about birthday parties and cake and ice cream, and she dreamed she got a balloon shaped like her kitty cat Whiskers.

And she opened her eyes, and it was morning. She had slept the whole night.

And she forgot all about her broken night light, which they never did fix.

Children and Toilets

timk — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0800

Kids and toilets don’t mix. They’re always going wrong at the most inconvenient times, like when I need to go.

I pushed open the bathroom door and almost stepped in it, a puddle the size of Lake Erie. Carefully lifting the lid confirmed my suspicions. The bowl was filled to the brim. Inside was a tiny log of poo and a half-roll of toilet paper.

“Shit,” I said. Then, “Gerald Ferris Robinson, Junior!”

“What?” I heard his voice echo from somewhere on the first floor. You know, whenever the Beaver’s mother used his full name, he came running.

“Come here!”

Feet bounded up the stairs, making a noise disproportionate to their size.

“What is it, Ma?”

I motioned to the toilet and surrounding flood.

He said nothing.

“I have to use the toilet, and now I can’t. I work really hard around here cleaning up after you. And I really wish you wouldn’t make my life more difficult.”

He seemed to stand a little shorter.

“That’s all I wanted to say.”

He quietly slunk downstairs, turned on the television, and turned up the volume.

I hated working in the toilet. When I was growing up, whenever my mother asked me to clean the bathroom, I would wear heavy latex gloves to protect me from the germs. I would used a disinfecting cleanser, and when I was done, I would carefully remove the gloves and throw them in the trash. Then I’d wash for 15 minutes, all the way up to my elbows, like a surgeon.

Now, plunger in hand, I needed to unclog the drain. I always got Jerry to take care of this kind of thing. But Jerry wasn’t home from work yet, and I had a pain in my butt that called out disaster, and I don’t mean the kid. As I worked, I splashed even more water onto the floor. I felt wet floor sliding under my shoes.

Then I felt long, wet hair sticking to my neck and water dribbling down my blouse. I shook my head to clear the feeling. I hadn’t had long hair since early in ninth grade.

The front door opened. A little voice screamed “Daddy!” Then thump-thump-thump, boom! and Jerry said, “Oomph! Watch my back! Where’s your mother?”

“Upstairs, but…” and I couldn’t hear what came after.

I continued to pump on the plunger handle. Footfalls ascended the staircase, stopping when they reached the top.

“I see,” Jerry said. Then he paused. “We need to clean up that puddle before it seeps through and damages the floor.”

“Look, I work really hard around here, and this wasn’t even my fault.”

“Okay.” He measured his words carefully, but before he could continue, I butted in.

“It’s the same thing, every day. He never listens. He never cleans up after himself. He makes a mess and then expects me to fix it. And now I can’t even use the bathroom, because the toilet’s clogged!”

“Do you want me to do that?”

I took a deep breath. “No. I have it.”

“Then I’ll get some towels for the floor.”

When he got back, I tore into him. “No, we can’t use those. Just let me handle it, would you?”

“What should I use?”

“I’m taking care of it.”

“No you’re not. You’re unclogging the toilet.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” I said.

“I know that. What’s with you and toilets? Just let me do it, okay?”

I shrunk back, silent. I was dry, but I felt drenched from head to toe, as though water were everywhere. I felt tears push from behind my eyes, but I held them back. Suddenly, I was on the floor. I forced my hand down into the bowl, scouring the trap with my fingers. I felt nothing in the water.

“What are you doing?” Jerry sounded angry.

“I just want my necklace back.”

“Necklace? What necklace?”

I ignored him, continuing my search. He grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me back, but I yanked myself away.

“No! It has to be there! It has to!”

“Olivia, you’re getting shit all over your hands!”

“Why did you do this to me?”

“Little Jerry’s only 6. Little kids need to get the knack of that sort of thing.”

“I need to find my necklace!”

“Olivia, calm down!”

The next thing I new, he threw me into the shower, undressed me, washed away everything. I don’t remember him starting the water, picking me up, wrestling me under the warm rain. I don’t remember relieving myself, but clearly I had; I hate to think where. I also don’t remember him drying me off, putting me to bed, cleaning up the mess.

I woke up in bed. It was dark out. Jerry walked in and sat down next to me. I propped myself up on my elbows.

“Hi, hon. I must have drifted off. I had the strangest dream.”

He summarized for me the evening’s events. “I know a good psychiatrist,” he said.

“What?” I felt my face turn hot.

“He wants you to keep calm and to see him tomorrow at 11:30. Does that work with your schedule?”

“I don’t want a psychiatrist!”

“Look, Olivia, that behavior wasn’t… healthy. You could have a brain tumor. You have to talk to a doctor.”

I sighed deeply. “I don’t have a brain tumor.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jerry sat beside me. “What’s going on, then?”

I closed my eyes for a moment to settle my stomach. Then I sat up and kissed him. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I made some burgers and fries for Little Jerry and me. We saved you some.”

I ate in silence. Jerry sat at the table with me. I could almost hear his thoughts, still thinking about the head shrink. But I wasn’t going to have any of it. I knew what had happened; I knew there was nothing wrong with me; and I didn’t want to talk to any mind-doctor about it.

When I was 9 years old, my brother Lee died. I was only a little kid and he about to start college, but he always had time for me. We played with dolls, painted and drew, watched TV, read books, went bike riding. Mostly I remember talking with him. He was like another parent to me, grown up and wise, but without any of the emotional distance that so often separates parents from their little girls.

Then one August day he got a cold, which turned into a chest infection, which turned into pneumonia. No matter what the doctors did, he wouldn’t get better. Lee had fallen victim to a little known disease called AIDS. We don’t know how he got it, though my parents always told me it was from a blood transfusion he had when I was a baby.

During the last days, I sat with him every day. We both knew what lay ahead. We spent endless hours together telling each other all the things you save up until the very end, but which most of us never get the chance to share. To this day, I can’t read Tuesdays With Morrie.

On one of these visits, I was wearing a gold, heart-shaped locket Lee had given me for my seventh birthday. Inside was a picture of the two of us from a photo booth at the mall.

Lee noticed the locket and smiled. “I remember that,” he said in short, grungy bursts.

I opened it up. There was a picture of Lee and I, smiling and healthy. Inside the cover was engraved, “Brother and sister forever.”

I looked at Lee, but I said nothing. There was a brick in my throat.

Lee took a heavy breath. “Wear it, and we’ll be together.”

From that day on, I always wore my heart-shaped locket, even to bed. It might seem silly, but to me it all made perfect sense. I kept it close to my heart so that someday I’d see Lee again in heaven. I couldn’t take it off, or else I would lose him forever.

So I wore the locket, but I never forgave God for taking my brother away.

In ninth grade, I began junior high. I recognized a few people from middle school, but there were also many strange faces. One day near the beginning of the school year, I got a pass during English class to use the bathroom. I hated using any public restroom, but some things can’t be avoided. I did the best I could. When I was done, a group of girls were loitering around the sinks. They were taller than me, and I did not recognize them from any of my classes. I knew they probably weren’t supposed to be there.

I tried to ignore them. I just wanted to wash my hands and get back to class. But one of the girls stopped me before I could reach the sink. She had short hair and an athletic build, and she was wearing ripped jeans and black boots with rivets. As she approached, she looked down into my eyes from above with a menacing coolness.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I froze for a second. Then I ventured, “I just want to wash my hands.”

“No, I mean, what are you doing here? In this room?”

My mind blanked out. Fear surrounded me. I felt as though I were being frozen inside of a giant ice-cube. I wanted to say something witty and threatening, but I didn’t know even how to begin. If I had been able to pull it off, that would have contrasted nicely with the dainty, pink blouse and frilly skirt I was wearing. Maybe it was best that I said nothing.

The girl stepped back a moment and smiled. “I love your hair,” she said. “Blonde and pink go together.”

I laughed a nervous “Thanks.”

“How did you grow it so long?”

“I’ve just always had long hair.” I choked the words out.

Then she noticed the heart charm I always wore around my neck. She examined it in her hand. “What a pretty necklace.”

“My brother gave that to me,” I blurted out.

She yanked it from my neck and threw it in the toilet. Panicked, I dashed after it, kneeling down next to the bowl, poised to grab it back, mustering the courage. But before I could, the other girls shoved my head in. They flushed. The current sucked in my long hair, which clogged the drain. Disgusting, cold water came up around my face. I closed my eyes and held my breath and scrambled and shoved against the bowl, wanting to get away, wanting to breathe, wanting to cry.

Instead, I felt a hand wham down on my head, shoving me in further. The toilet flushed again, and water overflowed onto the floor.

I got away. I was sitting on the floor in the center of a miniature lake. My hair was soaked, and water stains spotted my clothes.

The dark-haired girl craned over me, and as she talked, she accented each syllable with a nasty finger pointed at my forehead. “This is our room. You stay out.”

One of the other girls was holding a large wad of toilet paper, which she threw into the toilet. Then they left.

I still wanted to cry, but after all that, I could not. I crawled back to the bowl and rooted around for my necklace. But it was gone. Still, I continued my search.

The door opened and I heard the dark-haired girl speaking with a woman.

“I just came in here, and she was down on the floor with her arm in the toilet and water everywhere.”

“Thanks for bringing it to my attention. You can go back to class now.”

Footsteps echoed off the hard, cold walls, approaching. They stopped.

“Well, are you planning on cleaning this up? Or shall I call the janitor?”

I ignored her.

“Hey!”

She came closer, probably as close as she could without stepping in water. I did not look, but I heard her heels clap on the dry cement.

“Look, you,” she said, “this kind of behavior is unacceptable. I don’t know what they do at your house, but here we don’t stuff toilet paper in the toilet and then play with it!”

For the first time, I acknowledged her. I stood up, stepped back, and faced her. She was short for a teacher, but stocky. She had a painted on face and dirty-blonde curls, and she wore a pine-green business suit and skirt.

When I said nothing, she seemed annoyed. “Well? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

“This isn’t my fault.”

“No, I suppose the toilet faeries did it, right?”

“That girl— She threw my necklace in there and did this to me!”

“You mean Samantha Haverhill?” The expression on her face was as if I had just told a very unfunny joke.

“I don’t know her name. The dark-haired girl you were talking to.”

“Samantha is one of my best students. I don’t think she would be involved in any trouble.”

I just looked at her.

“Come over here.”

She helped me dry off and had my parents take me home. They wanted to know the story, but I didn’t want to tell it. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. And I forgot. I forgot everything. The girls, the locket, Lee, everything.

Mom and Dad noticed changes. I cut my hair. I talked differently. I dressed differently. They sent me to a psychologist. I told them to leave me alone, that I was “just growing up.” They seemed to understand that on some level, but the psychologist didn’t. He kept pushing and pushing, week after week, session after session. I lied to Dad and told him the psychologist kept asking about sexual abuse. Then my parents saw things my way, and eventually things did reach a new normal.

But I didn’t want to talk about any of this with Jerry. And I definitely did not want to see a psychiatrist, because the psychiatrist would want me to remember, and that would be bad. So I ate my dinner as though nothing were awry, except that I was eating by myself.

Little Jerry came up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist and said, “Mommy, after you go to the doctor and you get better, can you read me Mouse Tales again?”

I scowled at my husband from across the table, such that my son could not see.

Jerry did not respond.

I looked back at Little Jerry. “I can read you Mouse Tales tonight. Okay?”

He looked up at me. “What about after you go to the doctor?”

“I don’t need to go to the doctor, Little Jerry.” I touched his nose with the tip of my finger and smiled.

He smiled back and went off to play with his trucks in front of the television.

Jerry said, “You do need to see the doctor.”

“Okay,” I said, but I had no intention of seeing a psychiatrist.

The next day I blew off the appointment with the psychiatrist. But I did call my own doctor and got her to recommend a neurologist. I was able to make an appointment for the following week. When Jerry found out, he was miffed, I could tell, but he said that he was glad I was seeing someone and that I should keep him posted.

The next weeks passed without incident. Each morning I awoke, made everyone breakfast, saw Jerry off to work, got Little Jerry on the bus to school, washed the laundry and dishes, cleaned up from the night before just in time to get Little Jerry from the afternoon bus, helped him with his homework, cooked dinner, cleaned some more, saw Jerry home, had dinner, put the son to bed, and put myself to bed just in time to start over again.

I kept the appointment with the neurologist, who scheduled an MRI, even though he didn’t think it would turn up anything. The MRI turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone wanted to know if I had been under abnormal stress. I told them, no, I hadn’t.

A couple weeks later, we had my parents over for a Sunday afternoon feast, the centerpiece of which was a lovely honey-baked ham.

Dad finished his last bite and said, “That was delicious. You know, Olivia wouldn’t even eat ham as a child.”

“Why not?” asked Little Jerry.

“Because pigs are dirty animals and ham comes from pigs.”

“Yuck!”

“But the farmers keep them clean, and when we cook the ham, that kills all the germs.”

Now Big Jerry chimed in. “She’s still afraid of germs, though. When did that happen?”

I regarded him, suspected he was up to no good.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t always like that. I remember one time when she was about three, we thought she was taking a nap in her crib. She was so quiet.”

Mom said, “Richard, we’re eating.”

“Little did we know what she was getting into!”

“What?” asked Little Jerry.

“Her diaper.”

“Huh?”

“She had gone poop in her diaper, and she decided to finger-paint.”

“Eww!”

“Yup. It was everywhere. The crib was white when we bought it. But she turned it brown. Even the slats were covered. You know, the poles in the crib?” He moved his hands as though he were slathering something all over the slats of a crib.

I was no longer eating.

Then he reached his arms over his head. “The wall, too, solid brown, as high as she could reach. Her entire body, even her face, completely covered.”

“And who cleaned it up?”

“Oh! I picked her up from the shoulders, like this.” He pinched his fingers as though he were holding something toxic. “I just threw her in the tub and turned on the water. Then the crib. We got out the Lysol. I think we had to get a new mattress.”

“And that’s why she hates toilets?” Jerry asked.

But there was no answer. Only Little Jerry was laughing. There was an awkward pause.

Then Mom said, “Little Jerry, why don’t you show me your room?”

“Okay. I got a new truck! Wanna see?”

She ushered him off. Then Dad told Jerry the story about Lee. I didn’t object, nor did I add anything. I didn’t feel like talking. I didn’t feel like listening. I cleared the table and washed the dishes. In the background, I heard them talking about me, when I started high school, when my personality changed. I don’t know if they were aware I was listening. I don’t know whether they cared.

When it was time for Mom and Dad to go, I saw them to the door, said goodbye. And then I stopped breathing.

I dreamed I was in a sunny, green field. Samantha Haverhill was there. She was a teenager, but she was still taller than me. She towered over me brandishing a knife. I tried to move, but my muscles wouldn’t budge. I felt a sharp pain in my chest and I saw that she had cut me there with the knife. Then she reached inside my chest and yanked out my heart. I stood silently, unable to move.

Then Samantha dropped my heart into a hole in the ground where I was standing. She filled the hole with dirt. And I fell down and died. It’s a myth that you’ll die for real if you die in your dreams. I had died in my dreams before. My chest still hurt.

Samantha wanted to eat an apple from the tree that had grown where I had died, where she planted my heart. So she talked to the tree, “I’ve been searching for you for years, and I’ve been hungry all that time. May I please have one of your apples?”

I spoke to her out of the tree. “These are my apples. I don’t have to give you any, and I need them for my family.”

“Please. You have enough. Your family is getting fat, and you don’t even eat any yourself.”

“My blood flows through this tree like sap. These are my apples to give or to withhold.” Then I walked out of the tree, and for the first time, I was taller than Samantha Haverhill.

“Okay,” I said. “You may have one apple.”

She picked an apple, and where she had picked it, two new apples appeared.

I woke up, but not in my own bed. I was propped up, and there were wires and tubes connected to me. In the background, I could hear hospital noises. My chest still hurt. I looked around and saw Jerry sleeping in a chair, with sunlight pouring through the window all around us.

“Jerry,” I tried to say, but it was too hard to talk.

A black nurse walked in the room, and smiled. “So, you woke up.” She checked the I.V. and took my blood pressure as she talked. “I’m Adelle. Don’t try to move yet. You have a catheter in you, so you won’t have to pee. If you need anything else, you can push this button.” She picked up a button on a wire and put it in my hand. “I’ll tell the doctor you’re awake.”

But before she left, she woke up Jerry, who was happy to see me. I didn’t remember when last I’d seen him happy. He kissed me and stroked my hair and said, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“What happened?” I eked out.

“The operation was a success.”

Then I remembered. I had severe trouble breathing. An ambulance rushed me to the hospital, where they panicked and performed tests and panicked some more. They always tried not to show that they were panicking. Several hours later, I had an emergency open-heart bypass operation.

“Little Jerry?” I asked.

Jerry smiled. “Mom and Dad are staying with Little Jerry.”

I smiled, too.

Over the next months, I learned to let others do things for me. I was always afraid things wouldn’t get done. But I had no choice, and Jerry made sure of that. He worked from home frequently. Mom and Dad came over from time to time. Even Little Jerry learned to help out.

One day, I got an unexpected email. It was from Samantha Haverhill. She said we had gone to high school together and that she had something that she thought belonged to me. She wanted to meet.

I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to think about her. I ignored her email, but for some reason I could not delete it. Every time I considered it, I put it off. And the longer the message sat in my in-box, the more I did want to see Samantha Haverhill and do to her what she’d done to me.

I replied to her email and arranged to meet her for brunch.

We met in a classy tearoom. I recognized her immediately. Her hair was longer, but she was still the dark-haired girl.

She rose as I approached. “Hi. Olivia?” She offered me her hand.

She was about as tall as me. I suddenly noticed her face. It was softer than I remembered, despite marks of age. I introduced myself, and she began to talk.

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Twelve Steps. I’ve been going through a twelve-step program, and one of the things they tell you to do is to find everyone you’ve wronged and ask forgiveness. So I’ve been hunting down all the people I’ve wronged in the past. I want to try to make things right.”

I thought I remembered that from an episode of Seinfeld. “All the people you’ve wronged? That must be some list.”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “Yes, it is. And you’re the last name on it. I looked for you for years. I didn’t remember your name. All I had was one clue that helped me find you.”

She reached into her purse and brought out a delicate chain necklace with a gold, heart-shaped charm. She set it on the table.

I picked it up, opened it. Inside was a cheap photo of Lee and me smiling at the camera. I put it all together. She tricked me into thinking she threw it into the toilet. She swiped it instead.

“Will you forgive me?” she asked.

I felt like punching her in the face. “I don’t have to forgive you,” I said.

“I know.”

“There will always be people who won’t forgive you for the things you did.”

“You wouldn’t be the first.” She seemed resigned to fate and almost sad about it.

We were silent for a long minute.

Samantha stood. “Well, thanks for meeting me, anyhow. I’m glad to have given you back your necklace. Have brunch on me.” She placed ten dollars on the table and was about to walk away.

“Wait,” I said. I sighed. “Sit down.”

She sat back down.

I spoke in a harsh, angry whisper. “You don’t seem to realize what you did to me. My brother gave this to me before he died, and when I lost it, I thought I was going to die. You ruined my whole life! I cut my hair, changed my clothes. I lied to my parents. Damn it! I can’t lead a normal life because of you.” And I couldn’t stop. Against all reason, I found myself pouring out my soul to this person. The more I talked, the more I was surprised at what I was saying. I felt as though I were sitting as a third party to the conversation, listening to myself, getting to know myself again after all those years. I felt less and less angry. Instead, I felt sadder and sadder.

And finally I wept. For the first time in twenty years, I wept.

Slowly I began to realize that Samantha did not need me to forgive her. She had already come to terms with her daemons, or else she wouldn’t be here. She did not need me to forgive her. Rather, I needed me to.

That August, I spoke at a fund-raiser for AIDS research, in honor of Lee. I told them our story and moved the room to tears. They gave me a standing ovation. I know that sounds corny, like that’s how the story’s supposed to end: “Everyone lived happily ever after,” and all that garbage. Everyone did not live happily ever after.

We still visit with my parents from time to time—that will never change—and now I even occasionally laugh at Dad’s stories.

I still hate toilets, but at least now I can work with them.

Samantha Haverhill and I will never be close, but we do occasionally write.

And I grew my hair long again. I like it that way.

Churches and Innovation

timk — Thu, 30 Sep 1999 08:29:00 -0700

H’s comments last Sunday, on changes and trying something different, inspired me. I’ve jotted down a few of my thoughts, mostly culled from Peter Drucker’s book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which I recently re-read several times.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen very few innovative successes in churches. We usually think of innovation as something that businesses engage in, but there’s no particular reason why this has to be true. Surely innovation does work in business. And surely the church is no business. But that doesn’t mean that innovation can’t work in the church. But the church faces different obstacles, pursues different ends, and uses different tactics.

Why do churches fail? There are a number of reasons. The most important is that churches, like other public-service institutions, tend to maximize rather than optimize. After a certain point, spending even more on the same thing meets with rapidly diminishing returns.

When you go the grocery store, you buy one or two loaves of bread. If you have a large family—or if you really like bread—you might buy several. But you probably don’t buy 20 loaves. What would you do with all that bread? Even though you like bread, you know that the $15 or $20 spent on extra bread would be much better spent on soup, meat, or something else. It would achieve far greater results in terms of satisfying your family’s overall food needs.

But public-service institutions are generally rewarded for effort, rather than for hard results. More effort means bigger budgets and larger programs, even if results fail to follow. They also tend to see their goals as moral absolutes (rather than using moral absolutes to define their objectives), and their programs as working toward those absolutes (rightly or wrongly, consciously or unconsciously). Suggestions that they try something different, in order to achieve better results, are seen as an attack on the organization’s raison d’etre. Failure is often just a reason to redouble efforts. And waste more resources.

So, the first prescription against failure: Have reasonable objectives and realistic goals.

The head of the Crusade Against Hunger is quoted as saying, “Our mission will not be completed as long as there is one child on the earth going to bed hungry.” Yesterday in the London Independent, Tony Blair was reported to say that he wouldn’t relax his agenda until poverty had been eliminated. Many Christians see the role of the church as evangelizing the world. While these ideals may all be laudable, the world is a pretty big place with an awful lot of hungry children and more than its fair share of poverty.

The reality is that these jobs are much too big for any of us mere humans to handle. We have to leave them in God’s hands. We have to trust that He will somehow coordinate all the ongoing efforts, in order to reach as much of the world as possible. That He will provide work for the poor, and food for the hungry. If we try to take on the entire burden ourselves, we are doomed to failure. We may spend all our energy pushing the programs beyond where they’ve achieved optimality. Or maybe we won’t even seriously try, for lack of a reasonable objective.

What we ought to do is ask: What does God want us, in our little corner of the world, to do for Him? What is within our abilities? What will achieve the greatest results with the resources we have? Where are our strengths? And how will God use them as part of His ultimate purpose? It is part of the pastor’s prerogative to help us answer these questions, to take advantage of the opportunities God offers us.

God does indeed present us with opportunities to serve Him. And, here again, churches, as institutions, are often among the worst offenders.

I knew a church who, quite unintentionally, had a certain woman in its congregation. This woman frequently encountered people who were in dire need of salvation. And she befriended them, shared Jesus with them, and brought them to church. These people were from the dregs of society and were largely overlooked by the religious establishment. Within six months, one of the pews was half-full of people who had formerly avoided churches and Christians.

What to do? Convert the unexpected success into an opportunity. Perhaps analyze what this woman is doing that’s working so well. Perhaps there’s some way to duplicate the success. Perhaps there’s some aspect of the church that feeds these people. At least, there’s some aspect of the gospel that she has effectively, consistently communicated to a rejected demographic.

The unexpected success represents a change that has already taken place. It results from an unintentional tactic that has already worked. It is, in fact, the least risky source of innovative opportunity.

And it’s also the most overlooked and despised, because it represents change. The people in the church in question didn’t see that their church was filling up with unbelievers. They didn’t see God working in marvelous and mysterious ways. What they saw was that the faces in their Sunday morning service were changing. That their worship was being disrupted by people they considered low-life undesirables. And they unabashedly, in the name of all that is good, spurned the newcomers. That church had floundered for decades before, and it has floundered ever since.

We all become anxious at change. But remember: Change means opportunity!

Change always means opportunity for the person who’s able to exploit it. In our case, it’s an opportunity to serve. Structural changes. Demographic changes. Even failures represent opportunities.

After World War II, the American Catholic Church saw more and more educated lay people in its parishes. An educated laity is much less likely to accept the word of a priest at face value, without asking questions, without understanding the matter first-hand. By the late 1960’s, there was also a decline in the number of men entering the priesthood, resulting in a shortage of priests. Most of the Church saw these changes as direct threats. But one archdiocese saw opportunity. It took the simple step of appointing lay professionals to handle administrative functions that were previously handled by priests. As a result, it ended up with a different problem. Priests from all over the country wanted to get into this one archdiocese. Because there, and only there, they could do the things they entered the priesthood to do.

Which brings me to the third rule: Practice entrepreneurial judo.

In other words, analyze the efforts of other churches and organizations. Determine where those efforts fall short. Perhaps they fall short because the organizations don’t see precisely what God is doing. Or perhaps because they lack the resources to do the whole job alone. It doesn’t really matter. In any case, find people whose needs are not being met, and meet them. Or, as Paul put it, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”

This strategy works especially well in the public-service sector. Since so often public-service institutions maximize rather than optimize. And they overlook unexpected successes and failures.

It is the least risky innovative strategy. Coupled with the unexpected success or failure, the surest sign of opportunity, the pair is quite powerful. And, as we have seen, ignoring them can be deadly.

Entrepreneurial judo also works especially well in the presence of rapid structural change. Indeed, effective innovation is always necessary in the face of structural change. And the most sure-fire indicator of structural change is rapid growth. In other words, when the next big revival hits, lots of churches are going to be put out of business. Because they will fail to meet the spiritual needs of the millions of new christians pouring into the fold. If they hold faithfully to the old model, they will become relics of the past. (Who was it who said that when God bring revival, he shakes things up?)

The only way to survive will be to establish reasonable objectives and realistic goals, look for changes that can be turned into opportunities, and serve by meeting the needs of others.

Coffee

timk — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0800

Do you know what’s the worst thing that can happen in the morning? That one thing that can take a great morning, like today’s was, and all but ruin it? And this morning was indeed great. Yesterday was President’s Day, and a lazy Tuesday morning is what that particular holiday is good for. It was a delightful, easy start to a short week after a long weekend. I felt relaxed and vibrant, even if my head was a still little achy.

Not from a hangover. You see, the down-side to long weekends is that I invariably miss a few doses of caffeine. Yes, I do own a coffee pot, and I even have beans with which to use it. But on weekends I’m a lazy bum, especially on Sunday, and half of the time I can’t find my favorite mug, and most of the time I need first to fill the water filter and wait interminably for the clear liquid to trickle through, and after all this the final brew tastes and looks like radioactive waste, because the pot is dusty and dirty, and the funnel needs to be washed, and the grounds are stale. And I can’t even muster the will to traipse to Dunkie’s down the street; besides which, their coffee is almost as bad as mine. Fortunately, on Sundays we visit my parents, and I can always bum a cup off them.

What irony! You’d think a coffee freak would be a master of the brew. Indeed I possess all the requisite skill and talent, frequently expounding on the art to my coworkers in the company cafeteria. I can tell dark-roast from light merely with a deep breath. With a sip, I can tell you when you ground the beans and how long the pot has been sitting there. Once, my parents picked up an extra can of coffee at the grocery store—it was on sale. They offered it to me. Coffee in a can, I wasn’t sure whether it was a gag gift. (It wasn’t.) All of this is true. I take my caffeinated beverages very seriously. But when it comes to weekends, I’d rather bear the withdrawal than get up off my butt.

Anyone who’s experienced the withdrawal knows how big of a bum this makes me. Now, I don’t drink much. Only a couple cups a day tops. I take it in half-cup doses, because any more and by the time I get to the bottom of the cup, the once-steamy liquid would be cold. (And we can’t have that.) Still, by 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon, I’m feeling it, the symptoms. And I have little excuse. A mere hundred milligrams of caffeine would chase away that little guy nailing his pictures to the inside of my skull. I wouldn’t forever sleep that twitch-filled sleep. I could actually get my laundry done. By yesterday afternoon, I was taking Ibuprofen and microwaving tea (Earl Grey, hot).

Therefore, last night I actually slept, and I awoke this morning—good news—with little more than a sinus condition. On top of that, today was the little one’s first day of preschool and the first time since we moved in that the wife and I had the house all to ourselves. And love in the morning is my favorite kind. So I came into work this morning feeling good. And I knew I would soon feel better, because our coffee machine is better than the ones in some restaurants.

Then I encountered that one thing that can wreck the day after President’s day. Taking a cup, I drew up a measure of black liquid from the thermos, added just enough half-and-half (no sugar). The cup burned in my hand; the pot had been freshly brewed. I took a gentle sip, slurping between puckered lips. And now I’m gagging.

How often do I have to tell these people? It’s so simple? What kind of lazy idiots do I work with? How often do I have to tell them to rinse out the pot? That battery acid is at least 20% left-over from Friday. Damn. If there’s one thing worse than weak coffee, it’s week-old coffee. Of course, they probably can’t even tell the difference, the plebeians.

So now I’m standing with a cup of what appears to be the waste product of some mutant alien fungus. And what to do? Do I dump the pot and start again? And waste what’s in there? No, the philistines will drink the swill, so I can’t waste it.

Do I use the other thermos? The other thermos is empty. That is, it hasn’t been used since Johnson was in power, and it has a dark, grimy slime sloshing around in the bottom with brown flakes peeling from the sides. It definitely needs to be washed and scrubbed.

Or maybe I should just choke down what’s in my hand. After all, sometimes we all have to make sacrifices.

What am I talking about? No! I allow myself only a couple of cups, and I’m gonna enjoy them!

So I do it up right. Grab the bottle brush. Not that one; it smells funny. Use the other brush. A little dish soap. Lots of hot water. Scrub, scrub. Scrub some more. Rinse thoroughly. Twice. (The only thing worse than four-day old coffee is coffee flavored with a pinch of dish soap.) While I’m at it, I’ll wash out the funnel too. A dry paper towel to wipe the grime out of each little crevice. Then with soap and water.

Now for the coffee bean. We get pure Arabica pre-ground in sealed bags (metalized plastic). It comes in a variety of roasts and blends and lasts long enough for us to go through it before it goes stale. At least I get to choose what kind I want, something on the lighter side; the lighter the roast, the more the caffeine. I believe we have a nice breakfast blend. Hmm. Let’s see. Sumatra. Kenya. French roast. We’re going in the wrong direction here. Here’s some straight Columbia Supremo (roasted medium). I guess that’ll do in a pinch. Digging deep into box, I pull out some more. More of the same. For crying out loud! Hold on. Here we go! I probably got the last one. Coffee filter. Coffee grounds. Coffee maker. Push the button. It magically dispenses just the right amount of filtered water, pre-heated to just the right temperature, forming a dark, aromatic liqueur that dribbles into the pot.

I stand by the window with my arms folded. I stand and stare, hypnotized. Finally, the machine beeps at me. I place the spout into the thermos, close the lid, prime the pump. I take a deep breath and dribble about 6 ounces of the ambrosia into my cup. I add just a little half-and-half. I blow over the hot liquid. The delicate fragrance entices me. I sip. It works its way into my mouth and through my olfactory passages. I sigh.

Finally, nirvana.

In the Past

timk — Tue, 08 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0700

At first, he didn’t even know why he did it. It’s one thing to live with the mystery of one’s past; far more terrifying to come face to face with it. And yet here was Dylan Antonin Rogers, hunting down his own ghosts. Circumstance did not force him into the predicament. Rather, he chased it like a dog trying to bite the tires off an eighteen-wheeler. It happened on one of those find-your-long-lost-friends-from-high-school web sites. Of all the people he could try to look up, there was no good reason to pick Aubrey. She was just a childhood crush, not a close friend, but his memory of her could destroy him.

Dylan, at the time a new teenager struggling with the wild passions of adolescence, had in those days dreamt of being together with Aubrey. This was no sexual fantasy—he had no experience on which to base one. This was the confused desire of a thirteen-year-old boy, a wanting to be near her, to smell her long blonde hair, touch its delicate curls, to caress her lightly freckled nose, to stare into those sharp blue eyes, feel the gentle curves of her back. He longed to say to her what was on his heart and hear her respond in kind, then to kiss her soft lips, to taste them. How his heart burned, and how it tore when circumstances brought them apart.

He had cracked, yes, embarrassed himself, but even worse, embarrassed Aubrey. Not that it would have mattered: he was moving away to Boston, half a country distant from Medina, Ohio, and they would probably never again meet. During months of Algebra and Science classes he had sat at his assigned desk just behind hers. Each time she stirred, a halcyon breeze carried her scent to his nostrils. Each time he looked up, he saw her there. If only he reached out his hand, he could touch her beautiful locks, could sweep them aside, tuck them for her behind her young ear, as she was wont to do, and whisper words that would make her smile and blush and shrink and float all at the same time. But she didn’t even know he existed, and now time was out. He had to let her know or forever lose the chance. But he was a kid, and kids do stupid things. For weeks afterward Dylan cried himself to sleep—though he would never admit it—embracing his pillow, imagining it was her, inventing as a balm for his delirium a day when they would be brought together once and for all.

That was decades ago, 25 years in fact. Now Dylan was happily married, Katharine his bride a beautiful gentlewoman with golden hair and deep brown eyes, as intelligent as she was graceful. He was a mildly successful accountant, heavily involved in his local church and Rotary club, and respected. The two lived in their own two-story, four-bedroom, New England suburban home with their three beautiful children. He had staunch friends and a satisfying life. He didn’t want to change it.

Yet he still remembered, and he still ached. The memories were fuzzy, events from an eternity ago, but he felt as if they had occurred only yesterday. Despite all the happiness Dylan had found, the simple truth is that he would never again feel a longing as deep as the childhood passion he had felt for Aubrey.

At first, he told himself it was mere idle curiosity. Read email. Pull up a web site. I wonder what ever happened to Aubrey? What Dylan hadn’t expected was that wondering was better than actually finding out. There it was on the computer screen: Aubrey Keaton, now Aubrey Halpern. His heart paused. She had gone to college and had two pet cats. Her current occupation: homemaker. His heart fell flat. He couldn’t explain why.

“Hi, dear,” Katharine approached. “What’s up?” She was leafing through a catalog of some sort. Now she bent down and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Just reading my email,” he replied dryly.

That was no lie. Even now he wanted to move his mouse to the “email Aubrey Halpern” link sticking out of the page before him. But what could he write? Hi. You probably don’t remember me, and if you do it’s probably a memory you’d rather forget. But I’ve been thinking about you. And please don’t think I’m a psychopathic Internet stalker, ’cause I’m not. No, that wouldn’t do. This was just silliness, leftovers of a childhood fantasy. He closed the browser window.

Denial did little to ease Dylan’s heartburn. During idle moments he found himself thinking about Aubrey, dwelling on a few good-but-painful memories he had laid away in his mind. He was genuinely surprised each time he caught himself engaged in this daffy pastime and would sternly scold himself for obsessing over this girl—no, a woman he didn’t even know.

Here was such a moment, a wedding no less. Dylan hated social functions. He’d always hated them. And sometimes he even begrudged Katharine his company. With her outgoing personality and strong features, she spent the day exhibiting charm and finesse, buoyed on a cataclysm of socialites. Meanwhile, as usual, he would stand by and smile and drink and nod at the conversation and try to look as though he felt he belonged there.

Dylan temporarily tuned in to one of the guests chatting with Katharine: “… which reminds me, congratulations on your last column, the one on the free-speech implications of campaign finance law. It was quite thought-provoking.”

“Thank you, Earl.” She smiled. “That’s very kind. I understand you know a little something about free-speech law.” She winked.

Earl—How did she keep track of all these names?—was some sort of civil-rights lawyer or something. They all chuckled at the little joke. Inside, Dylan yawned. He dove in for another sip of his Coke and lime before he realized that he had already finished it off.

The woman continued, “Tell me, what impact do you think these laws could have on freedom of the press? In particular, I’ve wondered about…” The voices melted into the background as Dylan quietly lumbered off to freshen his drink.

Waiting at the bar was a slender woman with platinum hair that curled in slightly at the ends. Dylan approached, and she smiled in his direction. He returned the favor but said nothing, stepping up to wait his turn at the bar.

“Hello,” the woman said.

“Hello.” Dylan turned to her. She had a cute, tastefully made-up face that revealed the first signs of age. She looked familiar, like he ought to have known who she was, but the man had met so many people that day that their faces melded into a hideous collage in his recollection.

“You’re Katharine Rogers’s husband, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He still smiled.

“I’m Aubrey Halpern.” She reached out her hand.

Dylan froze. He did not believe in miracles, but even less in impossible coincidence. However, now he couldn’t deny the obvious. She had changed, of course, but this was the same girl he had sat behind in middle school. She still had the same oval-shaped face, the same soft features, a freckled nose, subtle eyebrows, and silver-blue eyes. For several seconds, but what seemed to his stilled heart only an instant, the man’s senses closed off to the world around him. He took her hand, felt it in his. He saw only her face. He heard her breathe, as the celebration around fell silent. Were it not that a woman stood before him, rather than the young girl on whom he had a schoolboy’s crush, he would have concluded he was daydreaming again.

She retrieved her hand in order to take her drink, which now waited for her. She eyed Dylan curiously. The bartender was asking if he wanted anything.

“Coke and lime, please,” he said softly. Then, turning back, “I went to school with a girl named Aubrey.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Aubrey Keaton, I think it was. That was a long time ago, in a place far away, in Medina, Ohio.”

She searched his now stoic face. “I went to school in Medina. And Keaton is my maiden name,” she admitted.

“My name’s always been Dylan Rogers.”

Slowly her bright eyes grew even brighter. She stood with her mouth agape. “Oh my! We went to school together!” she exclaimed.

Both were giddy.

The man behind the bar set Dylan’s full glass on a napkin on the counter.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” Aubrey asked.

“Well, my family moved to Boston when I was a teenager.”

She thought a moment. “Yeah, I remember that.” Then her smile dissipated.

A pause.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was a stupid kid.”

“Huh? You’re sorry? What for?”

“Well—” He thought a moment. “I embarrassed you. It’s fuzzy, but it’s one of the last memories I have of life in Medina. I sort of, um, made a pass at you. In front of everybody. I guess everyone thought it was a cruel joke, what with me moving away and everything, but— Well, I just didn’t know what I was doing. I was a stupid kid.”

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t remember being embarrassed. I do remember being disappointed that you were moving away.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry things were what they were. But it’s not your fault.”

A knot formed in Dylan’s chest. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“So,” she continued, alighting upon a stool, “you’re married to Katharine Rogers.”

“Yep. I guess so.” He sounded a little less enthusiastic this time.

“She sounds like a very nice woman.” Aubrey brushed a few strands of hair behind her right ear.

“What about you?” he asked. “Is your husband here?”

“Nope.” She displayed a bare finger on her left hand. “Separated. For a few months now.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” He truly felt sorry for her.

“Oh, don’t be.” She waved the thought away with her hand. “I’m not.”

They talked and talked. Hours disappeared. Aubrey had been married twice, divorced once, and pending the paperwork would have a second divorce. She was visiting Boston, being a friend of the bride’s family. She had studied journalism in college and now worked as a freelance tech-writer. She had a perky personality. She also made a habit of casually dismissing anything that didn’t fit in with her view of the world. Occasionally, though, when talking about her youth, Aubrey would give a thoughtful pause, as though she weren’t so sure of herself after all. Before they knew it, the evening had escaped them.

Katharine walked up, caressed the back of her husband’s neck. “Hi, Hon. I see you made a friend after all.”

“Oh, yeah. This is Aubrey.” He pointed to the woman sitting next to him. “Aubrey, this is my wife Katharine.”

“Glad to meet you, Aubrey,” Katharine said and shook the other woman’s hand.

“Likewise.”

Dylan continued, “Aubrey and I went to school together when we were kids back in Medina, Ohio.”

“No kidding?” Katharine thought for a moment. “We have to get back to relieve the baby-sitter or she’ll start charging us overtime,” she joked, “but I’d really love to chat some more. Can you come over for coffee?”

Katharine played the perfect hostess. She also didn’t believe in back-room politics or suspicion or spying. She was a direct person. Yet she always seemed to find a way to say things, no matter how bad they were, in a way that made you glad she’d said them. That’s why Dylan felt so guilty paying more attention to the strange woman in their livingroom than he did to his own wife. Of course, he reasoned, the wife probably didn’t notice, since she was herself paying more attention to Aubrey than to him. That, after all, was her job as perfect hostess.

The younger children had gone to bed. The eldest Rogers child, Andrea, sipped a glass of milk as she chatted with the adults for a few minutes. Then she retired as well.

Aubrey clearly felt at home with Katharine’s hospitality. And so, when the latter finally excused herself for a minute, Aubrey insisted to Dylan that she help carry the dirty coffee cups and dessert plates into the pantry. It was a small pantry. He turned and suddenly found his body trapped against hers. Time stopped once more.

“I can’t believe it. I never thought I’d see you again,” he admitted.

“Me neither.”

Then she kissed him. Memories that were burned into his mind, rehearsed a thousand times o’er and repressed far past the boiling point, welled up inside. A power stronger than any he had ever experienced overtook him. He lost control of his faculties. Dazed, he kissed her back, wrapped his arms around her and cuddled her just as in his dreams. He tasted her sweet breath, thick with carrot cake and coffee. Then he embraced her, basked in the fragrance of her hair, which he traced with a finger around her ear and down her neck. It was a miracle. They had actually met, fallen in love, and now could live happily ever after.

But happily-ever-afters never come, do they? Suddenly, he pushed her away.

He shook his head. “Do you think— I mean, I don’t think— I can’t have an affair.”

“It’s not an affair if we don’t have sex.” Her eyebrows raised slightly with a sly grin.

“That’s not the point, Aubrey.”

Her mouth flattening, she gazed up into his dark eyes. “I know. But—” She was strangely nonplussed, and the words came out hushed and choppy, as if a rendition of a secret ransom note cut and pasted from a hundred incompatible newspapers and magazines. “I never thought, ever again, I’d ever see you, and now I’m finding, again, I’m falling in love. And I don’t want it to end the same way.”

There was nothing he could do. Truthfully, he didn’t want it to end that way, either. There was a brick in his stomach. He didn’t want to hurt Katharine, but the girl before him had taken control of his senses. She was an undead, a ghost of his past come back to haunt him. His fingers retracted in fright. He shivered with cold. His lips trembled. There was no way to escape the torture he was at that moment living, causing his body to convulse in tormented agony, spasms of passion and regret and sadness and loneliness.

So he kissed her again, a deep passionate kiss.

And that’s when Katharine returned.

They were alone.

“Why? Dylan?”

Silence.

“What happened? I thought we were doing well. Are we in trouble, Dylan?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so—”

“So then what’s this all about?” Her mien was earnest.

Dylan’s eyes pointed toward the empty corner. “I don’t know. I have to take a drive.”

He moved toward the door, but she stepped in front of him.

“Wait. Please. We can talk this out. Whatever has happened, whatever the problem is, we can work it out.”

“It’s nothing that you’ve done, Katharine. Nothing that you haven’t done. It’s just— I must be going cracky. I— I don’t know who I am anymore.”

He left.

Water covered the windshield. April raindrops fell steadily from above and spattered from the road below, a continuous rattle periodically interrupted by the thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk of the wipers. Man was alone, his thoughts in communion with the road and the radio as it channeled the spirit of Edwin McCain: the trappings of love. He winced at the metaphor.

It was true. She felt the same as he. She had come from the grave, bringing the feelings that he had buried with her so long ago. She had proposed a suicide pact. It was a drug, this passion. It was an addiction. It deranged him and conscripted him into its service. He was out of control. He was miserable.

And what about the kids? He recalled the night of Andrea’s birth. The pregnancy had proceeded smoothly enough. But Katharine’s cervix refused to dilate. Twelve laborious hours later, the doctor performed a Caesarian section. During the interim, Dylan sat by, sleeping not a wink.

He recalled the first time he saw Andrea, in the operating room. The air was thick with an indescribable feeling, a fulfillment and excitement that only new fathers experience. Katharine was exhausted from the ordeal, and he held her hand as their new daughter took her first breaths in this world. They were a family at last.

The oldest is always the hardest, because she’s always the first.

Dylan remembered Andrea’s first day of school. She cried on the way to the school bus, because she didn’t want to go alone. Somehow, Katharine turned this little girl’s terror into enthusiasm, and she got off the bus that afternoon anxious to go back the next day.

Then she ran up against reality: some kids are just nasty. One time, she even got into a fight. Her mother was livid. But Dylan and Katharine were a team. Whenever one needed a time-out, the other picked up the slack.

Dylan loved his daughter. He feared for her. He so much wanted her to grow up without pain. He wanted to protect her from life. He knew he couldn’t. How did he make it even this far?

A woman’s voice spoke. “Hi! Who’s this?”

“This is Michael. I want to dedicate a song to my wife Sarah. Today’s our 40’th wedding anniversary.”

“Forty years? Wow! She must be a really special lady.”

“She sure is. Also, our youngest daughter is getting married next month, and so Sarah’s been really busy helping with the wedding plans.”

“Ooh.”

“It isn’t as bad as it sounds.” A snicker. “She always knows just when to step in and when to let go, and she’s always been there for all of us, especially me. I can always be myself with her, because she loves me for who I am.”

“A soul-mate.”

“Absolutely. I don’t even know how I could have made it through this life without her.”

“Well, Michael, I’ll see if I can find something special for you and Sarah.”

Michael Bolton began to sing “Only A Woman Like You.”

Dylan headed back toward home.

Katharine was sitting on the edge of the couch, her elbow in her hands. She did not look up. “I thought you would find someplace else to sleep tonight.” She choked on the words, her eyebrows forming a low V-shape between her eyes. She continued to stare into space, as though no one of any significance was there.

Dylan knelt next to her, gently took her arm. He looked up into his wife’s tear-mottled eyes. “I love you,” he managed to whisper. He inhaled a deep unsteady breath and blew it out again. “Our relationship isn’t built on feelings. It’s built on love, and I love you.” His whole face tightened as he fought to contain himself. Then, caressing a gold lock around the edge of her ear, he kissed the end of her nose. And she fell, wrapped her arms around his body, right there on the floor, and nestled her body in his arms. And they wept.

Finally, Katharine gazed into his eyes and tried to speak, but it only came out a feeble squeak. “I love you, too.” She squeezed him tighter, and never had to let go.

Living Inside a Top

timk — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0700

With thanks to Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister,
and those whose names are withheld for their own protection.
-TimK

I’m not leaving.
But my resume is up to date.

I’m just experiencing culture shock.
In a culture of oneupsmanship.

But I’m not one of those who wash out.
And go on to bigger and better things.

Reasonable hours: The average engineer works 56 a week.
And makes 87 thousand dollars a year.

And the payscale is competitive.
With the third world.

And fair.
To those rewarded with a cut.

I’m proud to be one of the winners hired.
Then told what not to do.

Proud to be developing a great product.
With second-class quality standards.

Proud of my accomplishments.
Overcoming conjured-up crises.

Proud to be one of the team.
That can’t get together on anything.

I’m not leaving.
But my resume is up to date.

Love Through the Eyes of an Idiot

timk — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0800

I remember the first time I made a woman blush. I don’t remember her name. Actually, she was little more than a girl, and I was still a boy, a child, an idiot in fact. I would remain an idiot until just before I got engaged. We were in our early twenties, and we still thought of ourselves as kids, not adults. She was a temp, filling in as receptionist. And she was cute, real cute. Her dirty blonde hair revealed the soft features of her neck and jaw. I wonder how much time I blew chatting with her rather than doing work. (I didn’t get fired.)

She said she had a boyfriend, and I believed her. I’ve never liked lies, even little white lies, intended to manipulate people. So if the boyfriend story was a fib, I didn’t want to know it.

She also said the relationship wasn’t serious. I caught the hint; I wasn’t that ignorant. But I was uncomfortable getting involved with someone who would break up with her “boyfriend” for me. I was looking for a relationship, and if she’d break up with him to go with me, what would stop her from breaking up with me on account of someone else? I wasn’t stupid; just idiotic.

It was the last day of her job with us. I knew I would miss wasting time with her. This was it, she said; she wouldn’t be back.

“That’s a shame,” I said.

She looked at the carpet and smiled, and her face changed from freckled cream to some shade of pink.

Sometimes I think women don’t realize the power they hold, how good it makes a man feel to please a woman.

I should’ve gotten her phone number. I should’ve given her mine. True, maybe we would never have used them. But I didn’t even think of that. I simply wrote off the opportunity, in exchange for a little boost of ego.

I had no excuse. It wasn’t like it had been with the girl who sat next to me in my high-school French class. She was friendly and perky, and prettier than most. One day we were studying the use of the verb aimer. The teacher gave a quick rundown of phrases, after which the girl turned to me and lightheartedly remarked, “Je t’aime beaucoup!” I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even smile.

Yes, I have a way with the ladies.

Then there was the Stewardess. I do remember her name, but I don’t want to embarrass her. I guess now they’re called flight attendants. I knew that’s what she did because she told me. I knew she had an interesting, steady job and a decent family. And she was nice. She actually talked to me and listened to me and seemed interested in learning who I was. And I had fun learning about who she was. Oh, and she was pretty, too pretty. These were all problems, of course.

I could’ve fallen in love with her. Hell, she took my breath away. I remember the pool party at which I had to shield my eyes to keep from staring. And even then, my mind continued to stare. And when she smiled, dimples appeared in her cheeks, and her eyes lit up the room like candles. Even so, she still made me comfortable enough to carry on a conversation. And we had a few nice talks, which she alone facilitated. (I would never have approached her.)

From me, not even a nibble.

The only girls I showed any interest in were the ones with problems. They were looking for quick fixes to their loneliness or a support system for their psychological disorders. Sometimes, they didn’t know what they wanted. There are too many to count, and I don’t want to dwell on it. A couple of examples will demonstrate just how firmly my head was lodged in up there.

One girlfriend, with whom I had gone steady, broken up, and then gone steady again, asked me to stop off at her girlfriend’s house on our way out to dinner. We were also meeting friends at the restaurant. She needed to stop quickly to pick up something she had lent out. It was an emergency, she said, but she’d only be a minute. She left me in the car as she stepped inside the house. A half-hour later, I started wondering what was taking so long. I investigated. Apparently, she had a personal problem—I never found out what—that she didn’t feel comfortable discussing with me (like most of what she thought and felt). But she couldn’t get to her girlfriend’s house to discuss it with her without a ride from someone, a someone who turned out to be me, and she couldn’t just ask me for a ride. Even if it was indeed an emergency, she had no intention of being only a few minutes. This was not the last straw in our relationship.

More common were the girls I never actually dated. One complained to me incessantly about the dearth of quality guys for her to be with. Now, I was a quality guy, but not for her to be with, I guess. She just wasn’t interested. (In hindsight, I can relate.) She said she didn’t want to lose my friendship. Ironically, that was probably truthful. Naturally, for me, this was the signal to turn the Obsession dial to 11. She was afraid my lust was out of control. Even back then, I didn’t know the meaning of the word. I was eccentric and confused, but quite safe. I haven’t seen her since.

In hindsight, I was lucky. About a year later I met my wife. She wasn’t my wife then, of course. In that span, I had gone from one disturbing experience to another to another to another. How many there were I lost count. Boy, did I know how to pick ’em. And M. was cute and sweet and sane, and she was a brunette (my favorite color), and her name began with M and R (my favorite kind); therefore, I had no interest in her. But I was tired of getting hurt, and I was an idiot, not stupid. So we went out.

At the time, she was studying to be a physical therapist. I was developing some sort of bony growth on one of my wrists, probably due to my poor posture at the computer at work. It sounds gross, but it wasn’t, just weird. After bowling, a movie, and a late supper, we got to chatting about work. I showed her my wrist. The only thing I remember is how gently she took my hand to examine it.

I must’ve freaked her out when I spent over a week deciding whether to ask her out a second time. I should’ve known, but I didn’t realize at the time, how crazy she was about me. Welcome to my world. We did go out a second time, and a third, and a fourth. Within a month we were engaged. I don’t remember exactly how I proposed, or even if I did, but it went something like this:

“I think we should get married.”

“Okay.”

“Well, that was easy.”

The wedding was September 11, 1993. We were husband and wife years before the twin towers fell, and we’ll still be long after they fade into the collective memory. Because true love isn’t about passion or lust or attraction or common interests and personalities. It’s something altogether different. It’s about learning to complement each other, learning to grow with each other. It’s about doing love-things, even when you don’t feel like it, even when life drives you to insanity, even if you think you’ve lost love. It’s about commitment and perseverance and thinking and feeling and happiness. And I thank God every day that I’ve found it.

Miracle Cures

timk — Mon, 04 Oct 1999 18:47:00 -0700

Non-profits, such as churches, seem to be particularly prone to the belief in miracle cures. While God does sometimes perform miracles, far more often He works through the mundane. It’s very easy to look favorably upon grandiose projects. It’s easy to want to evangelize the world, or to eliminate poverty. But, try as we might, we can’t. Only God can.

Each of us must ask himself: Where do I fit into God’s overall plan? In what detail can God use me and my church to His ultimate purpose? What specific thing does God want me to do for Him? We need to have reasonable objectives and realistic goals.

Otherwise we will fall into the same traps that have snared a million others. Their goals become self-evident moral absolutes, rather than obtainable targets based on moral objectives. Their programs become the embodiment of goodness. Any suggestion that they try something different, to get better results, is an attack on their raison d’etre. They lose their sense of balance. They waste their resources, fail to slough off yesterday, and let new opportunities slip away.

To give just one example, how many of us know of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America? I guess it wouldn’t be quite so euphonic to name it “The Partnership to Minimize the Damage Done by Drug Abuse.” Yet, if ten million people have to die in the war against drugs, will it have been worth it? Is any price too high, as long as the objective is eliminating drugs, rather than helping drug addicts? And the failure to meet that objective, far from indicating that the objective is wrong, is only an excuse to redouble efforts. And waste more resources. What would happen, I wonder, if small-time inner-city missionaries got the money wasted by anti-drug zealots? As the War on Drugs fades out of vogue, what will happen to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America?

Tomorrow’s churches and inner-city missions will have to pick up the slack. Are we prepared for the opportunity? But more on that some other time…

Governments are non-profit institutions, too. If citizens organizations can be plagued by the disease, how much more so an institution further plagued by the power to compel its will?

I am stymied that christians would seek help from government. Despite decades of political failure. Despite widespread corruption. Despite officially-sanctioned violence against Christians in China, Indonesia, and elsewhere. How many times has Social Security been “saved” by raising taxes and cutting benefits? How many government welfare programs have failed even to reduce poverty? And yet, Tony Blair proclaims that he will not relent until poverty is eliminated!

How will politicians accomplish what God Himself has failed to? How will they find the wisdom and self-control denied to the church? A hundred years of failed attempts have made it clear, government holds no miracle cures.

No, these jobs are much too big for us mere humans to handle. We have to leave them in God’s hands. We have to trust that He will somehow coordinate all the ongoing efforts, in order to reach as much of the world as possible. That He will provide work for the poor, and food for the hungry. If we try to take on the entire burden ourselves, we are doomed to failure.

But God never fails. Nonetheless we need faith to believe it when the world is falling apart around us. We need faith to trust in God. To step out and do what He has given us to do, and to leave the rest to Him. Maybe we don’t understand how God can pull it off. We may never understand. Such is the nature of a miracle.

Government holds no miracle cures. But God does.

On The Beach

timk — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0800

If anyone could see her, he wouldn’t know what she was looking for. She walked along this rock-studded beach, time after time eying the sea.

Her toe banged one of the large rocks, causing her to hobble as she continued her weary search.

She stopped, yes, her eyes wide, gazing out toward the water. Smile on face, she met the object as it approached her.

It was he. And she did embrace him. But her smile turned to tears.

“Damn plan,” she muttered under her breath. “Damn, stupid plan! We were happy. Why did you do this to me?”

The next day, she heard about it on the radio, “From footprints on the scene, authorities are looking for a woman, about five-feet-five-inches, a hundred thirty pounds, with a limp.”

Pine

timk — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Each morning Jace walked by her house on his way to school. Each afternoon he passed it on his way home. Sometimes, he would also pass at other times. Occasionally he would catch a glimpse of the bright-faced girl with wavy blonde locks. She sat under the two conifers that towered overhead. But as far as he knew, she never noticed him.

The house itself, a grey Stick Victorian with brown trim, spoke of a happy family. Its expansive porch took a jaunt through the sweet-scented yellows and reds of the flower garden. Little gabled alcoves jutted into the world, embraced by the overall form of the structure, as if its gables were parents looking after their offspring. A squat wall of white stone stood before this all, making up in intensity what it lacked in stature, a formidable protector to all within.

But the trees were even more special, for under these Jennifer would read. Or sometimes she would just be sitting quietly or humming softly a tune Jace didn’t recognize. Jace paid her no heed, or else she might see his admiration. But out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her shapely form, and he fought to keep breathing. And in his imagination, he felt the softness of her pink cashmere sweater in his delicate hands. He felt her fingers running through his thick, dark hair. Her chocolate eyes and his ordinary brown ones got lost in each other. Perhaps his finger stroked the line of her eyebrow, following her face around softly-curved cheek and jaw, finally resting under her chin.

But Jace said nothing, made no motion out of the ordinary. He merely continued walking, as nonchalantly as possible for a big-footed, lanky teen in a grey tee and worn khakis.

Jennifer walked into second-period Algebra wearing a close-fitting, short-sleeved salmon top and jeans. Jace looked up to see her nonchalantly flip her hair over her shoulder, sending a scented breeze wafting over his face.

In fifth-period study hall, Jennifer read. Jace took out a pencil and sketchbook, and he drew. From his seat two rows behind hers, Jace filled a page with sketches. At one point, Jennifer peered in his direction. Jace quickly buried himself in the papers on his desk. It was only partially an act. From his mental snapshot, he saw dark eyes, sultry, staring at him, which with talent and skill he transferred to the page.

In sixth-period English class, Jennifer sat at the desk directly in front of Jace. At one point, she turned to him. “I broke my pencil. Do you have an extra I could borrow?”

“Yeah.” He always carried surplus sharp pencils. Jace handed one to her.

The bell rang signaling the end of the day. As Jace started his walk home, Jennifer caught up to him.

“Jace!” She proffered the borrowed pencil. “Here’s your pencil. Thanks.”

He took it, but just for a moment, she held on to the pencil, would not release her grip, and Jace wondered whether she wanted to keep it. As far as he was concerned, she could. It was only a pencil.

“You were really a life-saver,” she said.

“It was no big deal,” Jace replied. It was only a pencil; he had only saved her a trip to the pencil sharpener.

“Well, thanks anyway.”

They talked as they walked, mostly trivia—school, the weather, the ball game—until they reached Jennifer’s house.

“Well, this is me,” she said.

Jace said nothing.

“Can I show you something?”

Jennifer led him up the path and under the tall trees.

“This is one of my favorite spots,” she said.

The shade was cool, and the air smelled of pine. Birds sung through a light breeze, which gently vibrated the branches in an awkward motion Jace could never figure out. Jennifer leaned against one of the trees.

“Sometimes I imagine standing under these trees and getting kissed by a boy I really like.” She giggled coyly. “It’s just a silly fantasy.”

She rubbed her foot through the blanket of needles underneath. Then her gaze met his.

“I guess everyone has silly fantasies like that sometimes.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’d love to see some of your drawings,” she said.

“Huh?”

“I saw you drawing a picture one time. It was pretty good. It looked like you did it a lot.”

Jace was mortified. “Um, yeah, I guess I do.”

“Sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

He pulled from his book bag a sketchpad. “Here,” he said, and handed it to her.

They sat next to each other under the trees, and she opened the first page to reveal a rough rendering of a house. On the next page some neighborhood kids played at the playground down the street. Then came a local road with cars, a bicycle and rider, someone working in an office.

She turned the page again, and saw as if she were looking into a mirror. But the face looking back at her was beautiful, suave, womanly, yet still young. It was the face of a supermodel, but not fake like supermodels can be; it was a real person, of flesh and blood and graphite.

“Oh my.”

Jace tensed and his heart beat faster.

Jennifer swallowed. “This is really good.”

“Thanks.”

The page after that was a collage of Jennifer. She was cute, sophisticated, sexy, humble, studious, and numerous other qualities for which there are no words.

Jace panicked. “Sorry.” He fumbled with words. “I didn’t, uh, mean to, um, stalk you— or anything.”

Jennifer didn’t look angry or scared as she looked him in the eye. She took a breath. “Will you kiss me?”

Jace froze, like a deer mesmerized by a pair of headlights.

As if in a dream he touched his lips to hers, soft and full. She smelled good. He put his arm around her, and his hand passed over the strap of her bra. Her body was warm and there. She put her hand on his leg.

A moment later, he counted her eyelashes. He touched his thumb to her eyebrow and traced it around, and Jennifer snuggled her cheek into Jace’s palm. Her skin was soft. It was smooth. And she looked happy.

“I like you, Jace,” she managed. Then, with a lost smile, “I wish I wasn’t moving.”

“You’re moving?”

“Yes, to Seattle.”

“That’s pretty far,” he said.

“Yes, it is.”

“It sure is.”

“Can you sit with me for a little while?”

The next day, Jace had to walk on the grass as he passed by the house, because the green and white moving van was taking up the whole sidewalk. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Jennifer, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Now when Jace walks by the house, he sometimes sees two young children playing in the yard. Jace has Jennifer’s new address, and they’ve exchanged one or two letters. But he doesn’t know whether he’ll ever see her again. He figures, even if you’re an artist, sometimes you draw dead. Still he imagines he sees Jennifer sitting under the pines, reading or humming softly a tune Jace doesn’t know.

Running

timk — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:00:00 -0800

This short-short is based on a true experience. -TimK

Down the sidewalk he darted around the dozens on their way to wherever they were going. He wore dress slacks and a beige, woolen jacket, and his black shoes clapped against the concrete. He stopped at a street corner just long enough to see his breath rise through the air and to hear a verse or two of a crusty-voiced, slurred beggar’s chant: “Disabled veteran. Spare a little change. Spare a little change…” There was more, two syllables, but though he tried to comprehend it, it remained unintelligible.

He crossed the street and continued running, the chant echoing in his mind. “Disabled veteran. Spare a little change. Spare a little change…” What was that last word? It sounded like “get out,” but that couldn’t be right. He tried to breath through his nose.

It was getting dark. He had to use the lighted dial on his watch. Four-fifty. In ten minutes, the streets would be filled with people and cars, a sorry situation for him to be in. He was late as it was. He quickened his pace to the beat. “Disabled veteran. Spare a little change. Spare a little change get out!” Or maybe “about”? Or “amount”?

The interview had been scheduled for 3:30. MapQuest said it would take a half-hour to get there. But this was in the city. He left at 1 o’clock. He was twenty minutes late for the appointment.

Then he needed money to pay the parking garage. He needed to find an automated teller and get out of the city before rush hour, or else what chance did he have of getting home in time to pick up the kids?

Finally, cash in his pocket, he ran down the sidewalk and across the street, just making the light, and into the city commons. He slowed his gait if not his breathing as he passed a businessman walking in the opposite direction wearing a long, cashmere winter coat. He looked up, prepared to say hello, but the man just looked straight ahead. Another beggar, who had earlier been sitting on the grass, was now placed strategically in the sidewalk.

Running once again, he climbed the gentle slope approaching the entrance to the parking garage. His back began to ache, and he also noticed a pain in his right leg. Having labored through the doorway, he floated down two flights of stairs. Then he slowed. The clap of his shoes echoed in the labyrinthine caves of the automobile. A flickering fluorescent light overhead dimly illuminated the way down aisle B.

He fumbled with the keys, his face now dripping sweat, his mouth dry. The door opened. He collapsed in the seat, almost passing out.

“Disabled veteran. Spare a little change. Spare a little change, come on! Disabled veteran. Spare a little change. Spare a little change, come on! Disabled veteran…”

He unbuttoned his jacket and started the car. It came to life, backed slowly out of its space. Then down the aisle toward the exit, and out onto the dark, crowding city streets.

But for once today, he would make it after all.

The Department of Caffeinated Beverages

timk — Thu, 03 May 2001 23:09:00 -0700

I always look forward to Monday morning coffee. It’s brewed fresh, almost worth the $5 fee. But this Monday was different. This Monday offered a first look at a new improved Department—this after I had just figured out their last set of improvements. You see, the DCB brews adventure along with the coffee. I never know what kind of experience I’m going to get. Unfortunately, like every other Monday, I did find out.

I entered the establishment. It _looked_ the same. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all, I thought. I walked up to an empty teller and placed my standard order.

“I’d like a large coffee with cream, no sugar.”

Without a word, the man behind the counter made an expressionless gesture toward an overhead sign, one of several identical placards, hand-crafted in uppercase letters:

TEA AND COLA
THIS WINDOW ONLY

Ignoring the misstatement, I replied, “Okay. So where do I get my coffee?”

He silently reached behind the counter and handed me a full-color brochure: Guide to the new Department of Caffeinated Beverages: Dedicated to serving you better.

“Okay. But where do I go to get my coffee?”

With an indication of actual human emotion, he thrust a finger to the right and sternly intoned, “Over there.”

I turned and saw something I hadn’t noticed before. There was a crowded seating area arranged in two sections with a single aisle between. The seats faced a counter. A sign read:

PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER
NOW SERVING # 21

I took ticket 47 and stood in the aisle. There was no room to sit down. A heavily armed security guard told me I couldn’t stand there. At that moment, I heard a synthesized bell ring, and with a stroke of luck the customer next to me got up and walked to a window at which a young adult male in a t-shirt and jeans was juggling three large boxes of hot liquid. Probably an office runner, I thought. I smiled nervously at the guard and sat down.

I quickly relaxed into the hard plastic seat. I had been late for work before, waiting for a cup of Joe. My employer understood. Reading over the brochure, I learned that a bottleneck of coffee drinkers had been forcing everyone else to wait in line for hours. Therefore, the DCB now has a whole new office dedicated to coffee requests. The Department has also instituted several Healthy Initiatives, so-called, but the brochure was very vague. I feared to learn what they’d done this time. Removed the caffeine? Brewed it cold? Added arsenic?

My thoughts were interrupted by a woman shouting. “Number forty-seven! Anyone have number forty-seven?”

Yikes. With as little fanfare as possible I scurried up to the window. The other customers retreated again into the privacy of their own imaginations.

“I’d like a large coffee with cream, no sugar.”

“I don’t have cream here.”

“Huh?”

“I can give you the sugar, but you’ll have to go over there to get the cream.”

She pointed to the “tea and cola” signs, now a distant memory.

“But I don’t want sugar. I just want cream in my coffee.”

“Is milk okay? I have milk.”

I wonder if you can get that with your tea.

“I’d really prefer cream,” I apologetically stated.

She sighed. “Okay. Fill this out.” She slid a sheet of paper across the counter. “Take it to the ’tea and cola’ window. Then come back here.”

I glanced at the dense page. Form 3921-B: Request for Application of Saturated Fatty-acid Animal Products to Caffeinated Beverages.

“Maybe I’ll just take it black today.”

After-market coffee cream is illegal, but everybody uses it occasionally.

Why Drug Prohibition is Ungodly

timk — Tue, 13 Jun 2000 16:02:00 -0700

The failure of drug prohibition dwarfs that of violent crime. Drug prohibition is the direct cause of most violent crime. Peaceful non-governmental public-service organizations—churches, inner-city missionaries, drug intervention programs—could accomplish ten times over what the government can, if only we Christians were permitted to give our money to them instead of to the DEA.

But none of this really matters. Because the strongest case against drug prohibition is simply that it is anti-christian and immoral.

Tell me, if you discovered that your own son or daughter were involved with drugs, what would you do? Would you turn her in, so she could spend years imprisoned under mandatory-minimum sentencing laws? Or maybe you would willingly forfeit your belongings under our nation’s anti-racketeering laws. Or you could make an anonymous tip and inspire a SWAT team to kick in your door in the middle of the night. Or perhaps, as a last resort, you could leave your daughter’s life in the hands of the pushers and black-market thugs.

The politicians in Washington know the correct answer. Whenever one of their sons or daughters is caught with drugs, they treat it as a private family matter. They even pull strings to get the DEA off their backs. But, in their arrogance, they refuse to let America’s parents take responsibility for their own families.

There is nothing godly about using the force of the police power to quell consent. Is it good when government social workers intrude into the homes of christian home-schoolers? Is it right to force people to associate with homosexuals? Should we rejoice that our tax dollars are being used to fund smut and anti-christian schools? Yet this coercion flows from the same idiocy that promotes drug prohibition.

When will we ever learn? As Christians, the first thing we need to do—before anyone is ever going to take us seriously—is to acknowledge that every human being has a God-given right to be a sinner. Each of us is responsible to God for his own behavior. And to intrude into that sacred relationship is simply wrong. It was wrong when men took up swords to civilize, as they said, the heathen. It is still wrong today.

The only moral course is to end drug prohibition, and to return responsibility for righteousness to America’s families and churches.

You Might Be a Libertarian if...

timk — Mon, 03 Jan 2000 00:00:00 -0800

You might be a Democrat if you believe that a school that can’t teach kids to read is qualified to teach them about sex.

You might be a Republican if you believe that this same school is qualified to teach them about God.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you realize that only government monopoly schools have trouble teaching kids to read.

You might be a Democrat if you think tobacco smoke is more dangerous than AIDS.

You might be a Republican if you think marijuana smoke is more dangerous than tobacco.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you realize that government agents are more dangerous than all of these put together.

You might be a Democrat if you believe guns cause crime but criminals don’t.

You might be a Republican if you believe new gun laws are bad but bad gun laws should be enforced.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you learn of the thousands of Americans who are assaulted, raped, and murdered every year because their government has taken away their Right of Self-defense.

You might be a Democrat if you believe government welfare helps the poor.

You might be a Republican if you believe corporate subsidies bring economic prosperity.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you notice all the political interests lining up for tax-funded hand-outs up on Capitol Hill.

You might be a Democrat if you believe a person has a right to sell porn, but not tobacco.

You might be a Republican if you believe a person has a right to choose his own employees, but not his own sexual orientation.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when they strike a bipartisan deal to outlaw all these things.

You might be a Democrat if you think the military starts more wars than politicians do.

You might be a Republican if you think Democrats start more wars than foreign meddling.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when your own son or daughter enlists.

You might be a Democrat if you believe taxes are good for America.

You might be a Republican if you believe public debt is.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you realize that it really doesn’t matter how you pay the salaries of all those government bureaucrats.

You might be a Democrat if you believe that objective standards are racist but racial quotas are not.

You might be a Republican if you think Democrats are full of themselves but families and churches couldn’t make it without your help.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you decide that politicians don’t actually know what they’re talking about and don’t really care.

You might be a Democrat if you think taxes are too low but prices are too high.

You might be a Republican if you think taxes are too high but government spending is too low.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you conclude that prices are too high because taxes and government spending are also too high.

You might be a Democrat if you believe culture didn’t exist before the NEA.

You might be a Republican if you believe morality didn’t exist before the DEA.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you wish that you could forget them both.

You might be a Democrat if you believe gun owners are evil for exercising their rights under the Constitution, while pornographers are good for exercising their rights under the Constitution.

You might be a Republican if you believe the ACLU is bad because it ignores parts of the Constitution, while the Christian Coalition is good because it ignores parts of the Constitution.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when it becomes clear that today’s Constitution is merely a convenient seive that politicians use to bash each other over the head with.

You might be a Democrat if you believe socialism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried only because the right people weren’t in charge.

You might be a Republican if you believe authoritarianism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried only because the right people weren’t in charge.

But you’ll become a Libertarian when you discover that liberty does work, everywhere it’s been tried, for those who are bold enough to try it.