Love and Stumbling

Karla played the cello in third grade. Oskar had a habit of wearing his socks on his arms, puppet style, one hand talking quietly to the other all day long. Karla touched  herself, and others, in inappropriate ways. She didn't know it. Nine years old, thick in the head, tall for her age and lanky ;  nothing made sense with her, inside or out.   Oskar was more available. Also nine, but strikingly different from Karla. He was tall but ungainly - thick in the waist, fat elbows, belt riding up high enough to cause suspicion. He smelled like pizza and his long black hair  hung down in front of his face in a weedy fashion, the ends shorn at odd angles. The two had been easy  and   separate  targets for the  other third - grade students. T he children   ruthlessly  cultivated   their newly - discovered  powers o f emotional and physical  abuse on the  two loners with  shrieking enthusiasm.  The boys tended to torment Oskar, the girls  focused on Karla. The  two rarely met ;  thei

“The chicken is dry,” said Harry. “The hose is out back,” snorted Mary, face down into her pillow. “Forty-five years, you still can't cook.” Mary scratched her head and pulled the blanket up over her ears. “I can choke to death on this.” “Harry, you shouldn't be eating in bed…” “Or what, Mary?” Mary rubbed her sleeping eyes open, and then suddenly, in that blinking instant, leapt from the bed to standing. “Harry?!” The frail woman leaned into the darkness, arms out. “Harry?” Silence filled the blackness. Mary slowly found the edge of the bed and brought herself down to rest upon it as delicately as possible. “If you’re eating in this bed, Harry, I don't care if you’re dead already - I'll kill you again,” she said, trembling. “And if you use the toilet, put the damned seat down. I'm used to it being down. You’re dead. I can have it down. And tomorrow, I'm gluing it down.” Harry waited until Mary was comfortable again, until her eyes wer

There were only two indications that the weekly  meeting o f  Liars Anonymous  was  convened  in the basement of the old church recreation room :   The  first was a  sign  that  said  “ L.A.”  in  bold  red letters on a  white backgr ound that hung on the  door over the basement entrance to the building. The second was the  handful of cars  lining the handicapped spots   in  the  otherwise barren  parking lot , each  sporting a less - than - believable  (or “questionable”)  blue and white tag  h anging from its rearview mirror .  Inside, the voices echoed  and the lies amplified themselves as if to beg for  recognition, forgiveness, and the  desire for cessation. A small circle of metal folding chairs ha d  been set  up  within the large room. The small group was a mix  of men and women ;  at a glance, a  seemingly random selection of  individuals snatched from any sidewalk at any time of day. Bill  and Betsy were well up to their necks in  squabble  as the others weakly tried

“It's not th at I never liked him – I liked him enough -  if it mattered anyhow, which it doesn't,” she hissed. “I want him dead. I want it to hurt. I want him dead and then bring him back so you can kill him again, right away, right now…” The  hit- man squinted. “That's twice the cash, even if I could… I'm no expert, but even if I could, it  ain't  right...” She smiled and the words sliced through clenched teeth, “You have no problem killing him once  but.. ,” she said and shook her head.         Stupidity. Killers. Assholes. Dropouts – they make it look like  something in the movies.  A hit- man is a loser’s loser: Bad breath, bad manners, and dirty, filthy, stupid third-grade dropouts. “Listen to me! Every week goes by I have to pay that schmuck to live, to breath e , to exist in this world just to bust my ass and remind me of what a god - damned fool I was in the very first god-damned place. Every check, every dollar in every check - every single cent