*it lacks a certain chipperness. don't worry, it'll be back.*

The morning thundered-- yellow brilliance, cloudless, blue pyre-- through 'Dale's quadrilateral living room window. Inelaborate offwhite curtains fluttered. A window screen hung ajar, like a bird with a broken wing; the attacking fox gone lame, collapsed in a heap on a very plain, kicked-up rug, shattered pottery nearby. A sickly green fridge light cast its death glow on the dusty kitchen dimness, left open. The light fell auspiciously on six empty Dos Equies. A week's worth of dishes piled up in the sink, but they weren't much, since 'Dale' had clocked into 'the golden arches' from six to eleven for the past three days.
The rest of his life revolved around Spaghetti-O's.
Last night had been the worst night of his life since his wife had left him, or since Ryan had chased him through the park with her Chevy. Margaret had come home.
Dale had been sauntering in through the door, feeling good, like a teenager in his viridian McDonald's pollo, like new beginnings, when Misses Cohen came swinging around the corner.

"Margaret," he said, startled. She must have parked her car in the garage, because there had been nothing in the driveway. The garage was a reassuring place, a place that said a woman might be staying. A woman might have changed her mind.
"I'm leaving you, Dale."
She was beautiful, as beautiful as he remembered, auburn hair piled in curls on her head, red lips, the flash of her green eyes, and the utopian curve of her derriere. But she looked at him like something she'd zap with the morning paper. "If it's money you need, I will get it."
She scoffed at his wretched servitude. "McDonalds, Dale. McDonalds. How the *hell* are you going to support me at McDonalds? I was promised a future in this crummy town, in this crummy house, with this god-awful marriage, and I've yet to see you followup on one of the promises you made me. I left my family for you, to go out and see the world. But the world is waiting, Dale."
"And you're tired of waiting."
"<expletive deleted for younger readers>ing A, Dale. You shot it right in the ass." Clothes were folded over both arms, suitcases piled high, handbags loaded, hung over bother arms and a makeup case in her hands. An envelope caught between her fingers. She sashayed off, kicked the garage door open with a red high-heeled foot, and threw her items down. Dale stood feebly, insides quaking, while he struggled to stand virile and unconcerned before her.
Margaret whirled around. "If you're car is blocking the driveway, move it." 'Dale' faltered. "For you own goddamn good, move the damn car, Dale!"
"It's some other guy, isn't it?!"
"Yes it is. And he's going somewhere."
"He's not going anywhere with you."
Roland Cohen's paragon stared him in the face, judgementally, before speaking again. When she did, here words were observant, eyes rolling down him, unimpressed. "What a vile little man, you've become," she said. "Shrinking into yourself, your brave, alluring mien tears over yellowgreen toad flesh, revealing what you are to me...I'm disappointed. All I can say is that I'm glad I saw it before it could ruin my life. I wish you and your problems...no, never mind. I don't wish you a thing. Go move the car, Dale, before I move it myself."

In the rawness of the night, he'd yearned after her fading taillights, with acrimony, ardor, desire. The world took a green spin in his eyes, till he'd beat it still with the bottle. As the world stilled, his senses eddied to crazed, desiring ferocity, longing to tear down the walls. Shattering, and crashing drove his mind down into blackness. He fell into a well. That morning, he woke up on the rug, cadaverous. In sickness, he did not sleep, but he did not wake either. He dreamt in monochrome. Or he might not have dreamt at all.

Angus pawned off her washing machine to cover the fine for speeding and get some spending money. Her pockets had been empty, and her checking acount with thirty dollars-- enough for her next meal-- after the rent.
On the bright side, her truck was paid off, and she'd just won a poetry contest somewhere in the UK. They were sending her the first green she'd seen for her words in two weeks. And it was lightning, in the sky, which meant it might rain.
Rain wasn't particularly good, when one was drafting in the park, flying to make a hopeless deadline, but it was inspiring enough to motivate her to finish it at home. As the first drops fell, she tucked the canvas in a burlap bag, tossed into her backseat, and shut the door to go frolick in the rain.
The life of an achiever.
Halfway through her frolicking, she began to wonder if anyone was watching her and felt a hint of bravado, so she danced while she was at it. Then the thought came to mind that 'attractive girls' didn't dance in the rain with bravado, and probably would have felt too insecure to frolick. She'd made a New Year's resolution to be more attractive, more like the chicks in good movies than the men. The fact that she was wearing a skirt above her knees the other day should have counted for something, so her dancing in the rain was an excusable reward. She savored any attention like New York cheesecake, lathered in cherry sauce, thick with cream.
Who am I kidding? she thought, I'm becoming just another bloody wannabe like those middle school 'gangsta's and the angry, angry, angry teenage goths who buy all there clothes at Hot Topic.
Angus was hip, because she knew about all those kids, because before she'd ever been a full-time artist, she'd been a high school councilor. It had been a depressing job. The other councilors thought she was wacko, and were probably right. So she'd left and chosen to pursue her true calling in life, making no money, living in an apartment.
Feeling a bout of self-pity coming on, she sopped back to the car, making eye contact only with a blue-haired elderly lady and slid behind the wheel of her truck, speeding away. It was almost like racing self-condolence, roaring in with the fog in the form of rain drops slapping against her grill and windshield. The storm raged against her, furiously, whistling in her windows, howling in a bloodthirsty tantrum, lusting for pain, death and carnage. The 95' Chevy shrugged through it in tollerant silence, before yellow headlights snapped on like opening eyes on the stretch of endless black ribbon; a gray car without lights. Angus cursed thoroughly, diving off the road in an out of control car, plunging into a gulley, with a great brown, wooden phantom looming up in the flood, smashing through her truck a foot from the dashboard.
This was okay, though, because her family was prone to car accidents, and after so many times one developed an immunity to whip lash and warping of the spine. It was almost like a tribal African tattoo, where the dents in one's vertebrae worked like the lines signifying the value of the warrior. People in Angus' family and neighborhood respected that.
However, the truck was an entirely different matter. Even with the washer cash, she didn't have enough for a new cheapy car, and she wasn't about to go out for a loaner. Loaners were just asking for trouble.
And this truck, this purple wonder, had been a veteran of so many wrecks, of food spills, exploded pens, innebriated friends, and Heaven-only-knows what else...it was the greatest crime about this wreck. That and she'd have to walk down Shining Avenue alone, to get to the closest pay-phone, when Shining Avenue wasn't the best place in the world to walk alone. But that was okay. Yes, that was all okay. She would just get out of the truck, lock her doors, and start going. Never knew when someone might try to break into a totalled truck and steal paintings with sentimental value just to kick a jobless actor with no life in the butt. It wouldn't be the first time.
Angus started up the road.

'John's name is now 'Dale' thanks to 'Veronica's supernatural insight. good work, Vero.

She woke up stiffly like a drunkard, the paint fumes still contained in the room, and Angus tossed to her side. But it wasn't enough to keep away the daylight. Absently, she wished the day could just pass, where she could slide into a restful hibernation, but she knew that would never come. Angus was always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She should have been used to it by now. But still, no progress was being made. Her acting was taking her no where, her vocal talents were put to no use, and she was nearly out of art supplies. And all this time, alone with her thoughts, only reaped depression, not knowledge, not some kind of new discovered wisdom. If she went to the library, she'd only be passing time, because everything she did was just to pass the time for some greater good…till she found some higher calling.
With some mental fumbling and groping for her dress on the floor, she recalled that the paint fumes were due to four hours of painting earlier that morning. She'd watched Gross Point Blank because she couldn't sleep, then she'd painted…she couldn't sleep in spite of the police…who had come by to carry away the crazy rug salesman named ‘Dale' and give her a speeding ticket for peeling past them. She'd peeled past them after that madman who'd fallen off of her balcony and called her some mean names, after trying to kill her. Then she'd chased him down the road, and through the park, losing him to a brick wall.
When her eyes were clear enough to see, she could make some sense of the primitive scrawling on white poster-board. They weren't like anything she'd done before. She hadn't been inspired. She'd just painted and scratched at the paper with a sharp charcoal point until something chaotic was depicted. They were raw emotion, unpretentious, inelegant…like cave-paintings, drawn to country radio and ‘Magic Mushroom' incense.
Angus got up and took a shower. She put on the only tee-shirt left in her closet, so she wouldn't have to shave, and some black boys' shorts. She scraped her soggy hair into a pink clip, spritzed on some perfume, and ignored the chipping polish on her toes. It wasn't like she had a life, in which case appearances would have mattered. It was the beauty of being--and staying-- single. Poetry in motion.
For breakfast, she popped some Excedrin, with a side of goat cheese and mango pudding. Played Sheryl Crow, and started to recount the previous night's events in her journal. She remembered the take-out Chinese she'd shared with her friend, Doug, the Charleston music she'd accidentally blasted when she was trying to turn on the TV, then the fiber-optic lamp, flying across her room in the dark, when she'd gone to get some rice crackers from her dresser drawer. Everything after that had become a blur.
After walloping the living tar out of her assailant, Angus had come to her senses. She had felt some remorse for the cruelty she had shown him, a cruelty which could only have sprung like the devil from the Viking berserker blood in her veins, originating long, long before the family had immigrated and settled to a simple Amish life.
As she could remember, the same berserker blood had plagued her conscience since she was a little girl, in grade school, and had gotten into a fight with a snotty little prep, who made fun of her mom. Amish girls never had to deal with insults to their mothers. Amish girls didn't fight at all, and the local non-Amish boys and girls kept the arguments contained to the arguers. These city children were a new breed, entirely, of corrupt, filthy backstabbers who took arguing to a new level, and nearly brought Angus to tears. The kids beat her up, so she tuned out feeling...and when she fought, it was just a fury of blows and kicks, apathetic, turned off to the world, and generally smiling sadistically. Her mother had been horrified, but Angus never gotten expelled or suspended, because the grounds monitors at her little ghetto elementry school had placed bets, and didn't want to interfere with profit. Soon, the bets had been placed on Angus.
Beating the living tar out of peers had been a pleasant, destressing way to wind down, and let out negative emotions. Angus had almost come to enjoy it...but after a number of years at different schools, where the district shifted around her name on a pricey black, word-processing screen, and fighting for the right to exist, Angus had wound up rooted at an uppercrust, 'college prep' school, for her outstanding academic achievement, and willingness to succeed. No one wanted to fight. No one knew how. And Angus' constrained violence, combined with her masculine qualities, boded ill for all her relationships. She was alone in a world of blooming aristocrats, walked around like a show-horse, entertaining, strangled by nonconformity...
The ringing of her phone jarred her out of bitter reverie. She took another swig of water, and answered.
"Hello."
"Er-- hello."
"Bob. Where are you?"
"Where am I? I am in San Diego."
"Where in San Diego?"
"At a pay phone on the corner, by an alley, where I am jamming and smoking weed with some hobos."
"How high are you?"
"I-- am not very high at all. Actually, drugs tend to have little effect on me. This is social smoking."
"What are the cross streets, where you are?"
"Albino and Denver Street, why?"
"No reason. Here, I'll be right there."
"How can you be 'right there', you're a hundred miles away."
"I'm a driven woman, Bob. Don't underestimate a driven woman. I'll be there in an hour to kill you and parade your head through town on a flaming poll."
"Oh. So you talked to Arthur."
"Damn skippy."
"Well, did he say he would meet us?"
"I think he did. He gave me his number."
"That's good, that's good. He must like you. That's a lot farther than I got."
"Do we need him?"
"Did he give you a demonstration?"
"No."
"We could use him."
Darn. Bad enough when they're arrogant; worse when they're arrogant with a reason...
"I have to go," Angus lied.
Bob chuckled on the other end of the phone. "No, you don't, you're just saying that so you can go back to your brooding and eat some more mango pudding."
"Wha---?!"
"Just a feeling. Bye, Ryan. Have fun with that pudding."
Click.
Against her better judgement, Angus reserved her homocidal inclination, to go put on some makeup, and take the chipping nail polish off her toes. Then, just to spite him, she did not eat more mango pudding. She decided to make a cake.

Eh, i was wrong. 'John' needs a new nickname. 'John' really doesn't cut it. Something tough and shady, yet begrieved and impassioned. Something like 'He-man'...

*not gonna change the names. they thought they could fool me. they were wrong. Roland is an IRISH name. not a british name. fools!!! mwahahaha*

In the fever of the afternoon, 'Dale' had taken his little white car all over town, in search of his wife. He'd popped in all her favorite hang-outs, and tried to get in touch with her friends, none of whom had answered. Two bartenders she'd talked to said they'd seen her in the Firebird. They didn't want to talk about what she'd said, but when 'Dale' pressed them, they swore she'd made no mention of him at all. But 'Dale' could have seen that. She didn't talk about herself much at all, to the bartenders. She talked to strange men, because she knew it enraged him.
Dusk rolled around; he pulled out and coasted home.

At eight of eleven, ‘Dale' Cohen came to, feeling crusty and ill-tempered on a notably afflictive couch. The dusty darkness around him burned into his eyes, the emptiness of the house that struck him, recurrently, swung again. ‘Dale' heaved himself to his feet, without bothering to light the house, making for the unfilled fridge.
It was then, swaying, zombielike, in the freezer's irradiation, that ‘Dale' remembered the ring. A damned ineffectual keepsake, murmuring to him like the One Ring. The stale odor of freezer-burned goods split his head till he absconded hunger, and followed the call of the ring. All the way to the equally damned sedan driven up to the curb, keys jingling.
The fifteen minute stretch between his house and hers was a featureless wad of night that would hang with him forever. The car clock said eleven-twenty-seven, and he was a shady figure, scaling the trellis to Angus' apartment. The madness would have been an appealing break in monotony any other day of the week, and was starting to look meekly appetizing when he crashed over the balcony. But only ever meekly, to a man so heartbroken as he.
The tumble he took, lunging over the rail made a nastily thunderous noise. The dogs in the building went off like gravelly sirens, crazed and offended. Several sliding doors whooshed open in sync, while ‘Dale' scrambled through the balcony door, inside, to roaring 20's loud enough to shake the walls. The volume shot down when he nudged the door closed. He registered the sugar-butter balm from cream of wheat, just as a strobe light glanced across his eyes. ‘Dale' began asking himself why he hadn't knocked on the door.
At some point today, she'd put up some bead curtains in the doorway between her rooms, that tinkled together to admit her. ‘Dale' rolled beside her bed ineptly just in time to see a fiber-optic lamp snap down on his nose. Angus yelped, scratched at the lightswitch, as ‘Dale' surged to his feet and dodged through the beads.
He was a blaze of smoke and persperation, streaking to the kitchen, and then to the door. But he hit the door, and fumbled with the lock...just time enough for her to smash him into it, let him crumple to his knees and dodge her foot. Then the hot, greasy spatula cracked against his skull and left him inelegantly sprawled. The ring jumped through his fingers, across the carpet.
"Dale, what are you doing here?!" she demanded ferociously.
His mouth was stiff and tingly where the lamp had hit. His mumble was incomprehensible. She dropped to a crouch, beside him. "Are you okay?"
"Im fime....." mumbled ‘Dale', wincing, struggling to flop over. She watched unhelpfully. Then she got up and strode to the phone, dialing a few numbers. ‘Dale' watched her through the sparkles.
"Are you still trying to kill me, ‘Dale'?" Angus asked, impatiently, perhaps waiting for someone to pick up. To the police, "Hello, this is Ryan Wilmer at eight-five-three-three East Mockingbird Street, apartment seven. Someone just broke into my apartment, who was threatening to kill me earlier today........no, he's indisposed.......thank you." Angus hung up and watched the man on her floor. He'd sat up, ring on his finger, propped against a beanbag chair.
After a few shallow breaths, he replied, "I wasn't trying to kill you, this time." ‘Dale' spun the ring on his finger. "I just wanted the ring back." He glanced up at her, then stood. She stiffened, groping the counter subtly for a weapon.
"Stay right where you are. I don't want you moving!"
"I just wanted you to know. So you could sleep tonight. You might not be used t--" Headlong to the balcony, in the blinking of an eye, and she tore off after him. She chucked the spatula at his head; it hit and fell, but he kept going. She dashed through the balcony door, caught him by the ankle, going over the rail. He lost his footing and clutched the trellis with a fist. He squirmed and cursed. "Let go of me, woman!"
"Not until you let go!"
"Then I'll fall!"
"Damn straight!"
‘Dale' shot her a look. Her fingers slipped a little. She was wearing a red, polka-dotted dress, ruby lipstick and a silver cross. He met her eyes indignantly. "Is that any way for a religious woman to behave?"
"I'm not religious."
"Then why do you have a cross?"
"It's pretty."
"Why aren't you religious?"
"The system's corrupt. I hold my own beliefs."
"Oh. You're one of 'them'."
"One of who?" she questioned. Her grip was slipping.
He ignored her question. "How long are you going to hold me here? This is very awkward."
"As long as it takes! I wasn't the one that broke into my apartment!" Slip.
"No, but you're a rude, unsentimental wench that slams the door in my face twice a week." Angus shifted her grasp. ‘Dale' yanked himself free, swung, clambered downward, then thudded to the ground. He capered away off into the moonlight, and she darted out the front door, down the stairs to her truck. She passed a police car, pulling into the lot, but didn't stop. Instead, she whirled out onto the road, punching the accelerator on the trail of an angry rug-salesman named ‘Dale'.

Secretly, 'Ryan's name was no more 'Ryan' than ‘Dale’s name was ‘Dale’. Ryan was actually a born from a German family and raised in an Amish community. Her mother and brother were outcast by the Elders for stirring up havoc by accepting the military draft in 1980, or somewhere around there. Ryan had been young then, and never really paid much attention to the ostracism at all. She just knew it had something to do with drafting and bloodshed and angry men in black clothing. The Amish were pacifists, and her dad was a hardcore Amish, and her brother was in all aspects a hardcore Mama's boy, the mother and children were cast out alone to fend for themselves in a world of graceless heathen jackals.
And, just as the cruel school children had mocked Roland, the ambrosially endearing little boys and girls of the inner-city school system were far from opposed to shunning a big-boned working girl named Angus.
It felt heartsinkingly craven to Angus to allow their cold and callous remarks to bring her down, and yet they never missed their mark. While she pondered over aliases, many feminine names, suitable to lovely baby dolls in frilly dresses, like Marylou, Kristina, Dawn, and Snow White, came to mind. However, to select anything so very far from the truth would fabricate an increasedly pigeon-hearted enterprise...and so, she concluded, the name should at least be suggestively masculine.
The name Ryan was put into play on the first day of fifth grade, and had propagated a league of followers so dedicated to male nicknames that Ryan/Angus had been pronounced 'Most Influential' during the premotion ceremony, three years later.
She drummed her fingers against a leather-guarded steering wheel, thinking all these thoughts because the date she had tonight was, coincidentally, an Angus, as well. Arthur P. Angus. She'd asked her friend and guitarist Bob for some shindig contacts before he set off for San Diego, out of his eclectic clod of jamming buddies. She and he had been friends for a few years, off and on, and often made sweet music together. Recently, she'd been helping him put a band together, and he'd stuttered on the name Arthur Angus.

"Arthur Angus?" she'd asked.
"Er...yes."
"You hesitated. Does he not like my kind of music?" There weren't many drummers inclined to bluegrass, in Angus's experience.
"No."
"Why did you hesitate?"
"Er...he might just be hard to get a hold of," Bob had replied brightly. Bright enough that she would have noticed if she weren't already scheming. "Yes, but...you could probably get in touch with him, that being your expertice and all." Bob was always being weird like that.
"Sure."
"Or, you know what, I'll see him soon, and just set you guys up. You two can talk. Let me know how it goes."
"Okay. Thanks a lot, Bob!"
There was a break in conversation where Angus could have sworn she heard chuckling. "Sorry, static. Are you getting that on your end? Oh, well, never mind. Bye, Ryan. I'll have you two meet on Friday at five. Take care. Give my love to the children."
"There are no children."
Click.

She swung out of the truck.

Fourteen minutes down the road from Shady House Apts. was a little bistro called Traveling Joe's, owned by a dirty old man with an incurable obsession for Marilyn Monroe. There were nude pictures of her hanging all over the back of his office, and in subtle places here and there around the bistro, that came down anytime the BBB or FHS came to check it out. His son was a jock at NYU, just a few years younger Angus. The owner's daughter was a spiritualist artist who owned a psychic-readings building across town, and popped in from time to time to peddle her facilities to guillible out-of-towners.
All the same, Traveling Joe's had a fine reputation for being one of the best bistros in the state of New York, and it was a quiet place to sit and watch the people come and go. A man Angus presumed to be her date was sitting, evidently watching nothing, with a look of certifiable disinterest toward everything and -one.
He wasn't like she had pictured him: a scrawny, dishevelled nerd with week-old clothing and too-short pants. Mr. Angus appeared to be, in fact, an golden-complected Don Juan lookalike on the other side of the tinted bistro windows. He was broad-shouldered and hard-eyed, but refined, as if at any minute he might offer her some tea, in a tea cup, from his back pocket, and have some mint leaves, too, to garnish the sides. He wore a cerulean cotton jacket and a dark expression. He greeted her unceremoniously, and let her pull out her own chair.
"You are?"
"Ryan," she replied coolly.
"Ah, my 'date'. Well, we should get a waiter over here for you. I ate already."
"Oh," she said, taking note of the man behind the counter. It wasn't the owner. "They don't wait on you here. They take the orders up front. Excuse me, please, I'll be right back."
"Sit down; they waited on me. It isn't any kind of restraunt if they don't wait on you. Why do they expect people to come? It is part of the service." Arthur had the stance of a vain critic, an arm slung over the back of his chair, his body sprawled eloquently over the seat. He considered Ryan/Angus with some disrelish. She shoved in her chair and got to the counter. Then ordered a bearclaw and some cappuccino. Two minutes later, she took it and sat down across from Arthur's smirk.
Never get a date from Bob.
"Bob told me to talk to you, to set up a jam," Angus stated. "That's the main reason I wanted to speak with you. We're trying to get together a band with some bluegrass, and rock, and Celtic..."
"Hm."
"He said that you had open tastes. What do you play?"
"Drums."
"Fiddle and mandolin."
"That's a bit of a peculiar instrument for practical purposes."
"I like it."
"I bet you do."
"So what music do you like?" she inquired, stirring in her whip cream.
"Nearly everything. Moby, Tom Waits, Beck, Peter Gabriel, Radiohead, Coldplay, Sigur Ros, Spoon, and Bjork--"
“They're good,” she commented, stuffing some bearclaw in her mouth.
“Don't say ‘they' like you know what you're talking about. It's a she.”
“I wouldn't know, I've only heard them on the radio, and they said the name.”
“Oh. Well.”
“I like John Mayer, Bob Marley, Garth Brooks, Appalachian Drive, Aqua, the Dixie Chicks—only I don't like their newer stuff so well,”
“And you're just saying that because of their political views, not their music.”
“Actually, I don't like them on a personal note, either, but mostly it's because their new music is more mainstream and lost the special something they had before. They sound like everyone else.”
“Well, I like them better now.”
“Well, that's good for you. What do you do?”
“I'm an accountant. And you?”
“I'm an actor.”
“You know, actors are usually only actors because they're too wishy-washy and fickle to stay under a consistent viewpoint or occupation.”
“You're very confrontational, aren't you?”
"Flavorless adherents are unappealing to me."
"Your mom."
Arthur stood, head cocked as he met her eyes. "I suppose it would be best to leave the negotiating to Bob from now on." He leaned over the table, and slid his number on a blue scrap of paper, in her direction; he winked.
"It wouldn't hurt to be less presumptuous," Angus replied, getting to her feet, and shoving in her chair. It was impossible to look him in the eye, as he was a head taller than she, and giving her an entertained look that made half her mass burn away in steam.
He raised a brow as he straightened, "No, it wouldn't," and then strutted through the door. The little bells jingled above him as she wondered what he meant...
She looked down at the little blue paper.
Never get a date from Bob.

"What kind of pet store has swingin' jazz music and people from all walks of life at 3 AM?"
"The best damn pet store in town!!!" Simpsons

"But it's good to scare children! It deadens them against future terrors!" Simpsons

“That’s a fluffy biscuit!”
“You’d be fluffy, too, if they injected you with dough conditioner and squirted on some Vitamin C…” Mom

*these things happen in New York...*

Just down the road from Shady House Apartments, a fresh, bright-eyed young man named James Dockson peddled ice cream at a chain vender that branched all the way across the country. He was blue eyed, slimly built, and disposed to apple pie and hamburgers. He wore tee-shirts that said things like, "Don't hate be because I'm Caucasian'€ and "Have you see my lost puppy?", when in truth he didn't get what either Caucasian or ‘puppy' meant in those instances, and preferred to make up impaired definitions of both the words to give his lecherous mind a giggle. He blew kisses at the girls when they walked by him on the road, and winked to the really cute ones, with a unmistakable bounciness that he was partial to…although, deep down, long ago, his heart had been given away to the woman down the road who called herself Ryan.
He was a little stoned from the night before, and so was having an exceptionally bad time dealing with the bitchiness of all the ruiner customers and all their nugatory, convulsive orders babbling over each other in his pounding head. A man with a coffee stained work shirt took the wrong ice cream without a word, and slowly polished off the entire top half. James was confused enough to stop being pissed for a minute. "Dude, that's the wrong cone. I totally gave you the wrong cone."
"It's all ice cream. It's all very sweet out here, on the street, don't you think?"
"Sweet like those chicks right there," he said, ogling a few bleached-blonde skirts that sashayed past and turned their noses up at him. He sighed, fell against his stand and began to bang his head on the umbrella. "This sucks. This really sucks like hell."
"Know what you mean, buddy," the work-shirt man said, swinging back into his car. He revved the engine of the off-white sedan, pining dolefully for the passionate growl of his lost corvette engine…
But then, with jobs, went benefits. With wives, and ice cream cones…with murderous fantasies of revenge. "Dale' Cohen began peel away from the curb, thinking; he hadn't really wanted to kill that woman anyway. It had just been stress. He was just aware of a car behind him when it honked, and his Mercedes leapt forward like a skittish horse, making a peculiar thudding noise, followed by high-pitched squealing. He whipped his head around fast enough to see the bleached blonde babe roll off the grilling of his car, her friend diving in the street after her, screaming and swearing. "Dale' cursed mutedly under his breath, fingering the switchblade in his pocket nostalgically. The girl's frizzy-haired brunette friend heeled her way over to his window and wrapped on the glass with her knuckles, her bloody friend was tucked under one anorexic arm. "Look, mista, I'm real sorry "bout your car. My friend's really in need of a cigarette, so how about we just forget the whole thing, okay?" Each word was said through gum chewing like a cow.
It took a moment to comprehend all that had just happened, and the words the woman used. Then "Dale' was befuddled, and shamefully relieved. "Do you want me to take her to a hospital?"
"Nah, sah, this'll be just fine."
"Good luck."
"Ah, that's sweet. You're a pretty good guy, sah." Then she hoofed it off down the road, through an alley, with her friend twitching and flapping under her arm. "Dale' only watched for three minutes of horror, before the car behind him beeped again and edged up against his bumper. "Dale' glanced back anxiously in the review mirror, and felt overcome with inexplicable pique. This was why, when he finally shifted his unlucky Sedan into drive again, it only went fifteen miles under the speed limit, maneuvering ahead of the Dodge behind him any time it decided to try and pass. The driver laid on his horn. "Dale' was just testy enough to flip on Nirvana louder than the silly Dodge man's horn, but quieter than concussion danger. Well, maybe not that quiet. But it made the man behind him shut off his horn and foreign Number One sign at him. Then, apparently, he heard the song was Lithium, and started head-bobbing along, too. "Dale' guffawed and sped away, off to home sweet home.
He was mostly deaf in one ear when the engine cut off in front of his house. Misses Cohen's car was yet to return. When he walked past the slightly-ajar door and saw a catastrophe of a house, it reminded him that the laundry and cleaning had yet to be done. When he ambled forsakenly into this dungeon of putrid habitation, and slung himself down on the couch, to watch bugs crawl on the ceiling, he heard his wife's voice say, "If only I'd married Doctor Benjamin."
Misses Cohen was always talking about Doctor Benjamin. Doctor Benjamin was the fiancé Misses Margaret Cohen had left just as soon as "Dale' Cohen had swept her off her feet in a whirlwind romance. He was dashing, debonair, and loaded with more money than Doctor Benjamin could ever offer her. But things changed. The rug dealers wanted him out, wanted him whacked. Doctor Benjamin had climbed the ladder of commerce and industry to become a leading name in his field, whatever field that was, and Doctor Benjamin had tapped into his feminine side, which made him just a little more youthful, just a little more accessible than short-tempered, back-of-the-class suburb kid "Dale'. "Dale' wasn't really quiet and maniacal, though, and his name wasn't really "Dale', either. "Dale's real name was Roland Guinoch Cohen. It was a nice, well-rounded name, considering that most of his origins were rooted somewhere vaguely in the radius of the West Indies…with the occasional Black Irish and/or Romani.
Roland had started going by
Dale' ever since the kids at school had started calling him Rolly Roland, when he put on a little weight. His father had made fun of him and told him he'd never be a lumberjack with that kind of load. Roland wanted to create beautiful things, but his dad wanted him to destroy. DESTROY, that was what his dad said. DESTROY the competition, DESTROY the environment by whacking down trees, because that was what the old man did for a living. His dad whacked down trees. He expected his son to whack down trees, and if not whack down trees, then at least sell whacked down trees, and if not trees, well, then maybe he should sell drugs, because that paid good money, and drugs were almost trees. And if not drugs, then hemp, Roland continued to reason,'hemp rugs'because hemp was almost drugs, and it almost paid good. And his father wanted him to marry a beautiful woman and have five children, all destined to be lumberjacks where Roland had failed. Unless, unthinkably, there was a girl. In which case she would be a housewife, and know her place in the world. "None of this new-age liberal shit," his father used to say. Roland would nod and yawn, and yearn to be outside, playing in the creek, or hunting. Since the name 'Dale' had adopted him, he'd developed an intense passion for knives, and loud music. The shy little Roland had been pulled deeper into a dark and mysterious side of himself, that seemed to attract the ladies. He suffered a Doctor Jekyl, Mister Hyde complex, being moody and secretive.
In his first and last year of college, Roland developed an affinity for ballads. Angry ballads. He wrote about pain. This writing proved to be very successful in future analytical endeavors, but not salesmanship...at least...in the sense of rugs. He'd made up for that with personal charisma. Still, Roland was never really a very good salesman, because his drive was to love and be loved by good people. In sales, his life was filled with bad people. He developed a street hardness from living on dirt with an empty pocket, until he moved to New York, and everything changed for the better. For the tougher, for the meaner, for the push-and-shove.
He let out an explosive sigh at everything his life was turning out to be and wished he had more coffee. He stretched out his hands in front of them, studying his fingers, and recalled that his wedding ring was still on that woman's kitchen counter. She probably wouldn't be happy to see him again. It might just be better if he sneaked back when she wouldn't notice and sneaked out again without an exchange of all the meaningless social trivialities.
Wait, what use did he have for a wedding ring, anyway, now that his wife was gone?
But then, maybe that woman had been right, and maybe Misses Cohen had just gone out for a very long shopping spree. Even...in spite of the cold, unreasonable facets of her personality shone the light on desertion. And the way that she cursed at him, and threw things when he demanded amorous passion. The way the house rocked and settled in the cold, rainy wind with no light or sun to warm its emptiness.
"Dale' cursed. The vender boy was right. This really sucked like hell.

At four o'clock, Ryan pulled up alongside James's ice cream stand and rolled down a tinted window. "Could I have a moose track ice cream, please?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," James said, smiling, "We don't have moose track."
"Could I have a cookie's and cream cone, please."
James's voice deepened seductively, "I'm sorry, we don't have…cookies and cream, either."
"Oh, well then---hey! I remember you! You're that guy from school. I didn't hardly recognize you. We went to high school together."
"Hm, yeah." James blushed a little, and his left eye started to twitch with withdraw. He imagined it wasn't healthy to go this long without a joint. "Hey, you want to go out some time?"
"I'll get back to you. I'm going out right now."
"Oh yeah, with who?"
"A blind date."
James gave an involuntary shudder, and dished her up a peaches n' cream into a well-packed cone. "A peaches and cream for the hot babe on death-row."
Ryan took it and smiled ingratiatingly. "Thanks a lot. Take care."
"Don't worry, I will," he called, waving, after the departing care. He coiled his salivating tongue back in his mouth and went shifty eyed, looking for the next dealer. He couldn't quite remember where he'd stuck his last stash, because his pockets were empty now.
The streets were crowded outside the second story apartment window, overlooking a dull gray monsoon-drenched pavement. All over people were rushing to their cars, sodden, clambering, in vain, to protect their hair. Women in felt miniskirts, and men in suits and ties. Ryan swiveled around in wheelie chair, delighting in this chaotic misfortune, an analogous depiction of a raven. A blonde raven. A cold, calculating, blonde raven. Her last turn about in the electric blue leopard skin chair, she caught a subtle moment in the doorway. As she dragged the erratic whirling of the chair slower with her foot, the man in the door became recognizable.
"<insert non-discriminating name for bad guy here>..." she murmured, then drew in a sharp breath as the man palmed a switchblade.
"I'm tired of your nagging, woman. I'm hate the way you always shut the door without a word. I hate the way you look out your window, and walk away when you see its me. I want you to buy a rug. I asked you nicely. I've always asked you nicely. But no one's ever nice to a door-to-door rug salesman. You're all just to bloody good for that!" With each word, he drew nearer and near, brandishing the icy steel with menace. The whites of his eyes gleamed bright in the dimness of the room, his face was ragged with 3-day stubble from nights of tossing and turning.
The woman glanced out the window. "Gee, I never imagined what you people went through. If you'd like some coffee, now, I'd make you some. You look like you need some coffee."
"It's too late for coffee," <insert name here> said.
"It's never too late for coffee."
"You're a fool to think I'll be distracted now by your cheap tricks. I've been wanting to do this since the first day you ever shunned me. I've been wanting to do this for years, to someone...anyone...You won't turn my head with coffee, now."
Just then there was a knock at the door. <insert name here> and Ryan shot a glance to the living room, and then to the window. The blinds flipped up, the curtain was not drawn. There were people stopping in their cars, watching through the window. The rug salesman backed away, and Ryan gestured frenetically to the kitchen.
"Coffee, you fool. Think about your life."
"Life isn't worth living until I get revenge!"
The door swung open. A man in a different colored suit and tie stood silhouetted in the entryway, rugs in hand. "Morning, ma'am. Do you make the decisions for this household?" Ryan took a step back. There were furious clinking sounds in the kitchen
that the salesman frowned at. He looked back at the woman and smiled solicitously. She gave a feeble nod.
"Well, then," he said, handing a maroon pamphlet, "My name is Dorian. You know, ma'am, people never really give enough thought to what they put on their floor--" His preamble faded as <insert name here, who we will call ‘Dale’ for now....> trudged into view behind Ryan, a coffee mug in hand. Ryan glimpsed at him. His hands were stilled by the caffeine. When she returned her attention frontward, the salesman at the door had gone red in the face, and hissed abhorrently, "You...."
Dale studied the man over the coffee mug before answering in an equally distasteful tone. "In the flesh."
"I thought I'd killed you long ago, you damned traitor!" The brown-haired middle-aged man declared.
"And I thought I'd had you assassinated!"
"What are you doing in this house?"
"This is my turf."
"This street is unclaimed, my friend."
"Not anymore, it isn't."
"Who are you working for now?"
“Is it any of your business?"
"I ought to beat you with your own rugs, you slithering traitor!"
"You're corrupt! You're all corrupt! All you want is to step on the little people to achieve the mission of Mister Q."
"That mission used to mean something to you."
"Not anymore," ‘Dale’ whispered.
Purple with mounting rage, the rival rug salesman lunged for Dale's throat, his carpet in hand. "YOU SON OF SLIME! You don't deserve to live!!" And began thwacking ‘Dale’ into unconsciousness. In a shock and horror, Ryan dove in to ‘Dale’s rescue, and threw a punch at the berserk salesman, frothing with sadistic bliss until he hit the wall. Before he budged, Ryan hastily disarmed him, wielding the rug herself.
"Get out," she snapped. "Get out before I call the cops." So the man did, lever himself to his feet, back up and scurry out the door. The crowd in the hall disbanded to give the madman passage, and, in disappointment as Ryan shut the door, scattered off once again, to their busy, fast-paced blue-collar and not-so-blue-collar lives.
Before all the excitement had died down in the blonde's thumping heart, she heard a shuffle of fabric behind her, and turned to see ‘Dale’, tugging at a coffee-stained button-down and pulling faces at the mess. Coffee on the rug. That salesman should be locked up. Not because of the rug, but because of the bestial waste of caffeine. In disgust, she helped Dale to his feet and brought him to the kitchen. Dale jumped over the counter into the kitchen sink, scrubbing his suit furiously. Then sopped out, and helped himself to more perk. Threw Ryan a look.
"I really suppose I should kill you for you animosity to me, but considering that you saved my life..."
"I didn't save your life, I was trying to conserve coffee. It's expensive. You don't know the value of French Vanilla beans to a starving actress."
"This is French Vanilla?" He inquired, sipping his coffee. "It isn't very strong."
"It's the cream. If you drink it black, the vanilla is really very prominent."
"Truly?"
"Very much."
"Hm." He sipped it again, lowering his nose to inhale the sweetness of the aroma. He fiddled with a ring on his finger, as if seeing it for the first time, slipped it off and flicked it onto the opposite counter. ‘Dale’ slid his fingers over the white stripe where the ring had been, feeling it like a blind man, seeking recognition. Then he sighed, leaned back against the counter and sipped some more. “My wife left me this morning,” he said to the inside of his mug. “She gave me no reason. She left no note…”
“Is that why you were so uptight?”
“No, I was uptight because of you.”
“Did my refusal to buy a rug really upset you that badly?”
“It discouraged me deeply. You're always the first house on my route on Mondays, and the last house on Fridays. You never even let me get past my first sentence, since the first day.”
“You come every Monday and Friday,” Ryan pointed out. “You're much too aggressive a salesman to be charismatic.”
“I'm a Taurus. Blame my stars.”
“Tauruses aren't even aggressive.”
“Shows what you know.”
“I don't think you're a Taurus.”
“Well, aren't we intellectual? Maybe I ought to stab you after all.”
“Not now.”
“Why the hell not now?”
Ryan lifted up a hand with a steak knife in it. It had been lying on the counter. ‘Dale’ scowled down at his coffee, stiffened, shifted uncomfortably. Ryan made a noise and rolled her eyes, “Well, you know, ‘Dale’, this has all been very quaint, this meeting you in my room, meeting your rival carpet salesman, and brandishing a steak-knife over coffee, but there comes a time when all good things must end, and I'm afraid I have to get to work. So how about if I drive you to your house and we pretend nothing ever happened.” Some car keys jingled in her hand at him, but the man only winced and turned away, drumming his fingers feverishly on the counter.
The counter was really a very nice counter for an apartment. It was white, stained only in a few places with cherry-flavored cough syrup someone had taken too long to clean up, and blue ink from last-minute notes scribbled upon its surface. There was a stove with at least three pots blemished with brown rings, and tea bags discarded in them. At the sound of movement behind him, and the ginger grasp on his arm, ‘Dale’ spun around in fury, standing face to face with Ryan. She tightened her grip, then shifted her eyes to the golden ring discarded on the counter. “Maybe she went grocery shopping.”
For only a moment did his angry audacity linger, before his face was contorted to one of unbearable frigidness.
He seemed to shrivel under her grip, enough to slip free, and once he had, he sauntered forward and out the door without another word. The door shut behind him. The apartment was silent. The ring sat cantankerously renounced on the kitchen counter, casting an eerie shadow on the white surface. Ryan set down her coffee, feeling the call of nature, and thinking it best to leave the ring where it lay. Perhaps, then, with some luck, and the wedding ring fairies finally getting their no-account, mothballed arses up to work, maybe the ring would just go away.
Ryan took one last sip of coffee, before refrigerating it.