KNOCKOUT MAUS


Big Carl Gruber was a cold fish, everyone agreed, including members of his own family. Emotions rarely crossed his slab face, and his actions, while sensible, never gave any hint that there were feelings animating them. There was a queer sense of disconnect about Carl; he moved his massive frame with a measured pace that never quickened as did that of his siblings when summoned to a good-smelling dinner. He was never in a hurry. His big blocky head, square jaw, barrel chest and thick arms, balanced atop a disproportionately smaller set of hips and legs, gave one the impression of a bison walking about on its hind legs. A shock of wheat colored hair sprouted from his scalp. His siblings, in contrast, were comparatively slender and dark-haired. Yes, Big Carl was a mystery. How had he come to be in this family?
Holidays served to further accentuate Carl’s divergence from the norm. On Christmas mornings his expression never changed as he slowly and methodically opened his gifts and carefully piled re-folded wrapping paper and ribbons off to one side, while his siblings ripped wildly into their packages, hooting and shouting and strewing shredded paper all over the room. In a family noted for extravagant gift giving, Carl chose offerings of breathtaking banality, such as a can-opener for his mother or a two-pack of printer ink for his brother Alfred. His father would usually receive some socks.
As a rule, Carl wore dull, monochromatic outfits (usually some shade of brown) on Christmas while everybody else flaunted the reddest, whitest, greenest and most glittery ensembles that they could find.
During Oktoberfest Carl could never be cajoled into taking more than a single pitcher of beer, and his hands didn’t twitch and tap to the beat of the Polka along with those of his beer-sodden father and brothers. He did not dance. He did not sing. He did not seem to be a Gruber family member in any way, shape, or form.
The root cause of these differences lay in Carl’s inability to experience or express emotions. His speech, though even and pleasant, was flat and colorless. Carl himself admitted that he didn’t really feel one way or the other about anything. He never felt anxious, scared, excited, ecstatic, elated, depressed, or bored. He seemed to be stuck in permanent emotional neutrality. His mother Olga often remarked that hugging Carl felt like hugging a lumpy sack of potatoes; there was absolutely no sensation of warmth or life to him. While locked in an embrace Carl would pat his mother’s back in a regular, monotonous rhythm like a circus seal, obviously performing a learned behavior with no spontaneous instinct behind it.
“I think he’s a space alien,” insisted his sister Gretchen, “definitely non-human.”
“No, no, no,” corrected Walter, his older brother. “Carl was switched at birth when the circus came through town. His real parents were in the freak-show.”
“Or maybe he’s like one of those genetically altered mice they use in the laboratory, where the scientists remove a gene to see what will happen, whether the mouse will grow only one eye, or whether it will refuse to eat,” theorized Alfred, Carl’s younger brother, “only in Carl’s case they removed the gene that enables a person to feel emotions.”
“Oh, you’re talking about a ‘knockout mouse’” chimed in Gustaf, Carl’s father, tapping the ashes out his pipe. “That’s the term for high-tech designer lab mice—and yes, they do “knock-out” a gene or two for experimental purposes, to see what happens. My scientist friend Uri tells me stories about the freaky stuff they do to mice up at the University. They’ve bred mice that blow up to the size of grapefruits because they’ve taken away the gene that tells them when to stop eating. Given enough food, they’ll burst their own stomachs and kill themselves. There are other ones that eat their own babies because they’ve eliminated the parental-love gene. So you think Carl here is missing a little something, eh? That could be, except that our Carl can’t be mistaken for a lab mouse. He’s too damn big! Right, Carl?”
The family had a good chuckle, looking expectantly at Carl.
Carl methodically tried on a number of expressions, some with a scrunched forehead, some with smile, some with a straight mouth, with eyes like slits or wide open, before settling on a face with slightly lidded eyes and a wry grin. “Whatever you say, Father,” he intoned coolly.
“I love you son,” declared Gustaf earnestly, tongue in cheek, putting his arm around Carl’s fleshy shoulders, “I don’t care what they say about you.”
There was a pause. Walter socked Carl on the shoulder affectionately, although hard enough to sting.
“I love you too, Dad,” replied Carl finally in a slow, flat voice, keeping the grin as he spoke. Each word was enunciated as if it were as separate sentence.
The group burst out laughing. After a moment Carl joined in with a queer staccato bark, which everyone knew was meant to be laughter but was so clearly not laughter that it was painfully funny. The metronomic bark went on a little too long and a little too loud and then stopped abruptly. This had his father and siblings in stitches, rolling about and holding their sides. His dour mother, trying to dry the dishes in the kitchen, let a sudden shriek of merriment escape from behind the hand she had clamped over her mouth in a vain effort to stifle herself. This involuntary outburst redoubled the general laughter, until tears ran down rosy cheeks and mucous bubbled in nostrils. It was just too much.
Carl was a good sport about the teasing. He was a genuinely good boy (at nearly nineteen now, not exactly a boy). Carl as a rule didn’t steal, lie, or lash out violently. Even as an infant he had been very calm. He had never been known to display any strong feelings in all of his growing years. Well, except one time when…but nobody in the family had mentioned that incident for about ten years. Yet, how could they forget?
The event in question occurred near the family vacation chalet in Eschenbach, a scenic town in the Black Forest, on a winter’s afternoon. Everyone had bundled up for a walk in the snow and to visit the war memorial and get some hot cocoa. While passing a frozen pond on the way, Carl’s father had started to venture out onto the translucent ice as a lark. He was in high spirits, feeling practically a child himself. His wife had become fearful for his safety and warned him sharply to come back. She thought maybe the ice would break; she had read an account of such a drowning just that morning.
Carl’s father, perhaps overly emboldened by brandy and beer, took exception to having his judgment questioned. He cursed and seized his wife by the sleeve of her parka and began hauling her bodily out onto the slick ice with him, disregarding her shouts and screams of fear. She tried in vain to dig in her heels into the snow and ice and was soon out on the ice with her husband, terrified and trembling.
Walter, Carl, Alfred and Gretchen stood in the snow like penguins, immobilized. Suddenly ten year-old Carl had thrown his head back and emitted an unearthly screaming howl, which rose to an earsplitting crescendo and then stopped. It was reminiscent of the sound that tomcats make when fighting, although with more raw power. It was so shrill that it rang in the ears. Both parents stopped to look over in amazed concern.
What they beheld was deeply disturbing. Carl had pulled off a mitten and was fiercely biting and gnawing at one of his own hands. Splotches of crimson already dotted the snow. He managed to inflict quite a bit of damage to himself before his brothers could stop him, and later had to undergo plastic surgery at a clinic. Parts of the thumb and back of his left hand had been bitten away. His father was very shaken by the incident, although the question of why Carl had done this was never adequately settled. The best theory was that the boy had been upset by the parental altercation and had acted out impulsively in a bizarre fashion. These things were not unheard of.
Since Carl had immediately resumed his usual impassive demeanor and never again deviated from it, the family had long ago buried the strange episode, although certainly there was a lingering psychological effect. There had formed a chasm between Carl and his family that was subtle yet unbridgeable. None would ever admit it, but each member of the family felt uncomfortable alone in a room with Carl.
Yet Carl was really much less trouble than his brothers. Walter got caught smoking cigarettes and fighting at school and Alfred stole liquor and tried to blame it on Walter. But Carl had only a few milder episodes on his rap-sheet.
On one Valentine’s Day Carl’s fifth-grade teacher Ms. Schmidt, as is the custom everywhere, had asked the children to make little paper Valentines for each other. Carl had drawn a name randomly from a box, and discovered that his valentine was to go to Erica, a winsome creature with long brown hair that sat behind him in the classroom. Carl had dutifully cut out stiff paper in the shape of a heart, colored it in with a red crayon, and wrote “I Love You, from Carl” on it before sealing up the gaily colored envelope bearing Erica’s name.
After Valentine’s Day Erica began to hang around near Carl at recess. After reading her valentine she had pocketed it furtively, red-faced. She hadn’t shared it with her friends. Carl eventually became dimly aware that Erica seemed to be expecting something from him. She would position herself in his path at recess time. He would say “Hi” to her, but could think of nothing else to add, so he would just continue walking past her to the playground. Daily Erica’s little frame seemed to droop and wilt a little more.
One day Ms. Schmidt noticed trails of moisture on Erica’s cheeks, and the story came out. The teacher contacted Carl’s father about the situation, and presented it as an amusing if regrettable childhood misunderstanding. Carl’s father immediately grasped the nature of the problem. He would have a talk with Carl about it.
“You’ve hurt her feelings, Carl. You should never say “I love you” to a girl unless you mean it. Now I don’t know what you’re going to do; by now the damage is done. She’ll get over it, but she’ll never forgive you, for sure. Be more careful in the future, son. You’ve got to think about other people’s feelings,” his father told him.
Other peoples’ feelings-- yes, father. But how was he to know what these feelings were, if he had none himself? How was he to avoid harming people inadvertently? From that moment on, Carl shouldered the responsibility of trying to perceive and respond to others’ feelings, based only on what he could educe from observation and logic. It became a daunting and exhausting daily challenge that felt akin to being a bull in a china shop with hardly space to turn around in. Carl was always on guard, lest he somehow squash someone. Erica’s silence and stony gaze reminded him all during secondary school of how easy that was to do.
Another sticky situation cropped up in the seventh grade when his friends Stephan and Todd began to talk strangely about a female classmate.
“Kimmy has big ones” noted his friend Stephan to his other friend Todd as they stood in a group on the schoolyard observing the other kids.
“Yeah she does. One time when she was having a sleepover with my sister,” replied Todd, “she came into the kitchen wearing a real thin pajama top and I saw her nips sticking up.”
“You lucky bastard,” Stephan exclaimed to Todd. “Let me know when she’s coming to your house again and then invite me and Carl over. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see Kimmy naked!”
“Sshhhh, not so loud, you dope” hissed Todd, hunching down and reddening. “What if she hears us?”
Carl’s mind was swirling with confusion. Nips? They’re talking about Kimmie’s breasts, aren’t they? Why? What about them? And why look at Kimmy naked? What was so interesting about that? Last he’d heard, girls were supposed to be “icky”—and he hadn’t understood that attitude too well either, but had along with it. Now, the rules had obviously changed. It must have something to do with sex, he decided. He knew about sex. He’d been getting erections from time to time, and he’d read the health textbook’s chapter on reproduction.
“Yeah, I’d like to see Kimmy naked too,” Carl remarked, instantly adapting, “and I want to look at her vagina.”
Stephan and Todd stared at Carl, impressed.
“Damn Carl, you’re one sick pervert!” laughed Stephan.
Todd cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out to the girls “Hey Kimmy—Carl Gruber wants to see your vagina!”
Kimmy and two of her friends immediately stalked over. “What did you say?” asked Kimmy.
Todd and Stephan were flustered. “You tell her, Carl,” suggested Todd.
“I told him I wanted to see you vagina,” Carl said to Kimmy.
She gasped and reddened. Her two friends gaped in surprise. “You guys are in so much trouble!” said Kimmy. The girls ran to tell the yard duty about this outrage.
The three boys went off to play kickball in high spirits. Later Carl received a summons to the principal’s office and served some detention time, but his reputation around school was made from then on.
Sure, he’d like girls. There was nothing that Carl couldn’t fake. Already he could fake plenty of stuff, like how to seem enthusiastic when his mother made an elaborate dinner. Like how to pretend to be sad for Uncle Gunter, who had been a U-boat man and now seldom spoke more than two words in a day; how to act disappointed to lose at checkers with Alfred; how to laugh when his father told jokes; and how to act mad when boys heckled Gretchen. And so on and so forth.
The only problem was that Carl’s world had become a constant series of ever more complex challenges; the effort to respond correctly to the subtle emotional cues in his environment left Carl exhausted and drained at the end of his day. He was getting increasingly worn down from the strain. Life only got tougher as each school-year limped pass tediously. How long could he sustain this charade?
Now that Carl was twenty, he had a growing awareness that the best thing for him would be to leave home and travel far away. Somewhere where he could relax and be himself without hurting anyone. Maybe he could become a monk or a soldier. Being stranded on a desert isle might be nice; he could fish and swim and have the whole place to himself. But the most expedient plan that he could think of was to join Walter at the academy in Konigsberg, as his grades were probably high enough to get in. At the academy he could bury himself in his studies and be alone most of the time. Carl resolved to talk to his father about it at the next opportunity.
This opportunity presented itself a few days before Christmas. The family had convened at the Eschenbach vacation chalet, as was the custom, with Walter in from Konigsberg and Gretchen from Munich. The weather was crisp and cold; a fluffy coating of new snow blanketed the world and icicles extended from the eves. Everyone was cozy and warm inside and out and all was jolly until father began to hit the brandy a little too hard. Then he smashed a bottle against Olga’s jaw a little too hard after she tried to take it away from him. He’d knocked out one of his wife’s back molars and shattered another, and he’d done this right in front of everyone. There had been a lot of blood and shouting before Alfred and Gretchen bundled their mother into the car and took her off to the emergency clinic.
Walter stood white-faced and trembling with Carl outside the kitchen door. Inside their father slouched muttering at the table, which was laden with several bottles of brandy and his 9mm Luger. He was drinking straight brandy from a water tumbler and spinning the pistol on the table with his forefinger. The boys could hear the metallic scraping as it revolved. The radio played waltzes in the background. He was like some dangerous caged beast.
Walter peeked in and saw that there was an open box of cartridges on the table too. “We can’t go in there,” said Walter, grasping Carl’s arm. “There’s no telling what he’ll do next. We must call for help.”
“You go ahead and do that,” said Carl. “I’ll stay here and keep on eye on him.” Walter hurried off out of sight and Carl stepped into the kitchen.
Gustaf, disheveled and red-faced, regarded him warily. “Well, well, well. Are you crazy, boy? Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot you?”
Gustaf picked up the Luger and waved it about lazily, pointing at nothing in particular, although the black hole of the muzzle twice traversed Carl’s face. “So here you are-- my big boy; my boy who feels nothing. My giant lab rat of a son. So, what do you want to say to me? I suppose you want to tell me what a bastard I am for getting drunk and hitting your mother. Go ahead and say it.”
Carl said “Father, you’re a bastard for getting drunk and hitting my mother.”
Gustaf laughed and took a drink from the tumbler, and set down the pistol. “God, you’re one queer bird, Carl. You don’t give a crap about what I did to your mother, do you? You really don’t care. I like that about you. Here—go ahead and have a seat.”
Gustaf pulled out a chair and Carl sat down to his right. Gustaf slid a bottle over to him.
“Have a drink.”
“No thanks.”
“C’mon, drink to our health. Have a drink with your father. I insist.”
Carl upended the bottle vertically and took a long, chugging draught of brandy. Gustaf’s eyebrows rose higher as the level of the amber fluid bubbled downwards into the neck of the bottle.
“Allright, allright, that’s enough. I didn’t know you were such a lush.”
Carl set the nearly emptied bottle down on the table. He was completely expressionless. No grimace, no cough, no tears in the eyes like you might expect from someone who’s just had a big jolt of 80-proof liquor, ruffled his composure. It was if he had just drained a glass of cranberry juice.
“Father, I want to go to the academy in Konigsberg with Walter,” he said.
“Sure, I don’t see why not,” replied Gustaf, mildly surprised. “Good luck with that. Knock yourself out.” He face grew somber. “Funny you should mention Konigsberg—I’ve been thinking a lot about that place lately. But Carl, did you know that I’m going blind? Yes, glaucoma. Too late to do anything about it, the doctor said. I let it go too long without detection. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I had to take an eye test as part of the company physical last month—some new policy. I didn’t pass. It turns out I’ve got big fat blind spots in my vision, and I didn’t even know it. What do you think of that, eh?”
“That’s unfortunate,” said Carl.
Gustaf poured more brandy into his tumbler. “Yes, unfortunate. The company has taken me off the bridge. You can’t be a bridge operator unless your vision is good. I understand that; they don’t want some barge crashing into the span because their man is half-blind. I don’t know what they’ll have me do now. It’s possible they’ll retire me early. I’m not even sure I’ll be allowed to drive a car anymore. Nobody else knows about this yet—not even your mother.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” said Carl.
Gustaf took a long drink from the tumbler and picked up the pistol, turning it from side to side and examining it carefully. “This pistol came from Konigsberg, you know. It belonged to our neighbor Fritz; I took it from his house on afternoon. He’d left town anyway—this was 1945 and the Russians were coming so he got scared and ran. I wanted something for protection, and I had your mother to worry about too. Walter and Gretchen were stashed with Aunt Lottie in Hanover, thank God.”
“It seems to be a very nice gun,” said Carl.
“Well, it didn’t protect us. Those Russians were not nice fellows, you know. They were especially rude to ladies.”
Gustaf grinned widely, so wide it looked painful to Carl.
“There wasn’t much I was going to be able to do with this pistol or anything else to stop them. Five came to the house, all armed with machine guns. I still remember them quite well—bad smelling chaps, very dirty. One in particular stands out, a great big beefy fellow about your height and weight. He seemed just so delighted to be in our house, happy and smiling, pawing through everything and looking over at me as if daring me to react, to get angry, anything. I wouldn’t give him or any of those bastards the satisfaction. I kept my mouth shut, even when they roughed me up pretty bad. Watching what they did to your mother was a lot worse. Your mother made me proud—she never begged for mercy, she never screamed, and she only cried for a short time. She never talked about it afterward, for which I’m grateful. She’s always been stronger than me that way. We put the Russians behind us; or tried to, anyway.”
Carl sat silently in his chair, expressionless. “This is all new to me,” he said.
“I’m guessing that the others are pretty scared and called for officers,” said Gustaf. “So I want to tell you one more thing while I can.”
Gustaf put his left hand palm-down on the table, drawing attention to the discolored brown scar tissue on the back of his hand. He’d told the kids that the scar had been the result of a carpentry accident.
“See that scar? That was caused by a bullet from this pistol here, not by a jigsaw. I shot myself to avoid conscription into the German Army. Your mother and I had fled Konigsberg after our visit with the Russians and had gone west to get away from them. We managed to get through the enemy lines but then got stopped by a group of our own soldiers near Seelow. They wanted me to join them and help defend the road to Berlin, and it was clear that they weren’t taking no for an answer. To get out of it, I shot myself in the hand that night and said that I had been hit by a Russian sniper. They bought my story and sent me on to Berlin for medical care, where I hooked up with Olga again.”
“That must have been very painful,” said Carl.
“Not as painful as fighting the Bolsheviks for Hitler would have been. Now put your own left hand up on the table with mine, Carl.”
Carl put his left hand alongside his father’s, and both saw the nearly matching scar tissue from where Carl had bitten his hand so long ago.
“See how we are fated to be alike, Carl, right down to the scars we bear. And yet there is a difference. I am drowning in feelings, and you are not. I envy you for that. You will never feel guilty. You will never feel ashamed. You will never feel inadequate. You will never hate yourself. As for me, these things have become my life. They blot out all chances for happiness. They are crushing the life out of me. And now I will be arrested and taken to jail for being a drunk and a wife-beater. There is nowhere lower to fall. I tell you these things because I want someone to know my history. And I tell you because I want you to realize that this emotional numbness of yours is a blessing in disguise.”
“I don’t want to live, father,” said Carl. “Will you please shoot me?”
“What! How can you ask me that? You have everything to live for! What’s wrong, did something I say get to you? Are you feeling something at last? You’re wondering now if I’m your real father or if some big Russian is, aren’t you? Does that bother you so much?” Gustaf sprang to his feet in agitation.
“Does it bother you, father?” Carl asked coolly.
“Yes, Carl, yes it does, if you must know. God knows I tried not to let it, but it did and it does. It bothers me every day, and it bothers me every time I see you. It bothers me right now. Is that what you want to hear? At least with you honesty is possible, or at least I thought it was. Now live, damn you, live. It is I who must die. Take this pistol and shoot me right now, Carl. But you live, please live.”
Gustaf jammed the pistol into Carl’s hand. “Shoot me,” he commanded. “You can tell them it was self-defense.”
Carl lifted his big fist and fired nine deafening shots, emptying the pistol. Behind and to the side of his father the oven door took a terrible beating from the hail of bullets, and suddenly the mouth-watering odors of the big holiday ham that had been slow-roasting inside burst through the punctures and filled the room.
“Damn that smells good,” observed Carl.
Gustaf stood thunderstruck. “You better hope you didn’t ruin dinner, boy!” he said, and then began to laugh.
Carl joined in with his staccato barking noise, but then an odd thing happened. The barks became slightly irregular and just a smidge less mechanical, and trailed off rather than stopping abruptly. Not that either man noticed; both were now at the ham, tearing off chunks of the hot meat and blowing on their burnt fingers and stuffing their mouths as fast as they could. Their faces were slick with grease when members of the Eschenbach police force cautiously entered the kitchen and took Gustaf into custody.
“I’ll come to bail you out,” said Carl.
“No, Carl. Let me stay in. I’d rather just do the time. You look after your mother.”
“I will.”
Carl felt a strange pressure in his throat as his father was driven away. Was this an emotion, at last? Then he let loose a tremendous brandy-redolent belch. No, guess not. How about the film of moisture in his eyes? What was that from? Smoke?

THE END

Monogamy by the Numbers
Definitive guidelines for the modern couple

Introduction: Why another Relationship Book?

We can’t have too many relationship books, and that is because relationships are complicated and we are only just beginning to discern their full significance. Each new relationship book sheds a little more light on its particular area of focus, and in aggregate these lights illuminate the current state of relationship theory, a territory bounded on four sides by biology, sociology, psychology and ethics. There is always more useful work to be done in this field.

And certainly, any effort made to understand or improve relationships is effort well-spent, and people are increasingly interested in doing so. Dr. Philip McGraw’s work is hugely popular because people are hungry for his insights on relationships. However, no expert can do it all, not even Dr. Phil. Just like they say about raising a child—“it takes a village.” Well, say hello to a new face in the advice-village, Monogamy by the Numbers.

We say “by the numbers” because the controlling idea behind this book is that breaking a modern “taboo”—that is, looking at relationships from a mercantile angle rather than an emotional one—can yield useful results. I’m convinced that a pragmatic viewpoint (i.e, the relationship as commodity rather than gift) can help people. I believe that there is nothing more important to our society than solid, functioning and equitable sexual partnerships. Indeed, the well-being of our civilization depends on the quality of these partnerships, and in turn that quality depends on fostering a sense of parity between partners. Hence, we speak of monogamy “by the numbers.” It is an algebra of sorts that solves the equation of love and sex. Only when x = y is our job done. The relationship must balance.

This book deals only with monogamous relationships-- two people with an agreement to have sex exclusively with each other. There are of course other kinds of sexual relationships, but these are beyond the scope of this book. The area of focus is already wide enough and needs some delimiting, and besides the monogamous relationship is a very special one. Monogamous couples in particular operate within a seething maelstrom of forces-- conscious, unconscious, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical, material, sexual, financial, and historical—and that makes things interesting. The sexual dyad forms a microcosm of our world, and everything in that larger world has an analog within it. To improve a monogamous relationship is to improve the world in a very direct way. There is nothing more worthwhile.


About Myself

I’m from a left-of-center West coast clan, and absorbed a fun hippy-era upbringing in the small town of Aptos, California, just south of San Francisco. More important to me than smoking weed or hanging out was watching Mom and Dad hash out their complex and interesting relationship. They made an unusual couple, to say the least, and always had areas of contention going on.

For instance, my mother would travel alone for months to India, leaving my father to care for his brood of four children alone. He suffered immensely from isolation during these long absences; how, I wondered, would my mother make this up to him? There had to be some compensation, I reasoned, or why wouldn’t he leave her? And sure enough, he got his own opportunities for solo travel when she returned, which he availed himself to. They managed in this fashion to both raise a family and travel the world, but there was a price tag to be paid in melancholy for this feat, I noted.

They had a merrier repartee as well. Once my father shaved half the beard off of his face, leaving the other side intact, to see how long it would take my mother to notice. She went for at least fifteen minutes without making a comment, only to shriek when she finally saw what he’d done. This mixture of apartness and playful togetherness impressed me greatly as a boy, and continues to shape my attitudes about monogamy. Finally, that Mom and Dad are still solid after more than fifty years gives me a sense of optimism about relationships.

For some reason I had always been fascinated by monogamy. I was only six years old, my parents relate, when I greeted my aunt and her family at the door of their home by loudly announcing “I’m not married yet!” How many six year old boys think about getting married? Clearly, something had caught my attention but what exactly is lost in the mists of time. Whatever the cause, monogamy has always been my north star and lodestone and I orient my life around it.

At the age of twenty-two, without sufficient financial wherewithal, I finally did get married and that was the start of my personal confrontation with the difficulties that beset monogamous relationships. Although I went on to accrue a master’s degree in English and twenty years of experience as a registered nurse, my true calling has always been the study of relationships. This calling has been additionally fueled by the practical necessity of surviving the contentious unions that I always found myself in. As fate would have it, I’m drawn to assertive women. As a result I am a veteran of thousands of conflicts and sharp verbal altercations. Constant warring has left me with more than a few gray hairs.

This contentious milieu developed in me the habit of turning to self-help books for assistance. For years I’ve voraciously devoured every relationship book I could obtain, starting with Dr. John Gray’s classic Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, trying to figure out how to negotiate a fair resolution to my relationship woes. Each of the books supplied fresh insights, each acted as a piece in a gigantic puzzle—the puzzle being the “big picture,” the whole fascinating and intricate process of partnership negotiation

Over the years I’ve been married, had two great children, divorced, and now I’m currently involved in a complex 10+ year monogamous relationship with my partner Aileen, a public health nurse. She and I have squared off over dozens of relationships issues, and we joke that she should have been an attorney because she argues so skillfully. Let’s put it this way—because of her, I’m a very well-honed interlocutor. Most of my sharpest insights into relationships stem from what Aileen uncovers as she probes and rebuts every idea that I assert. This has been an invaluable resource. Monogamy by the Numbers was gestated and grown on real-world angst and tears, and it took horrendous “labor pains” to bring it into the world. Over the phone, face to face, by email, in cars, every component of the book has been hammer-forged in the heat of battle. Now the baby is delivered, and it represents the final flowering of a lifetime of obsessive study and testing. May it serve you well.


Ch. 1: Monogamous Relationships are a Valuable Commodity.

Most people at some point in their lives want an exclusive long-term sexual partner. Straight people, gay people, rich people, and working people all want the same thing: a loyal sex partner who loves them and whom they love. This want has been explained by biologists as arising from a deeply-rooted reproductive strategy that is programmed into the human genetic code. People want monogamy for the same reason that mallard ducks mate for life (namely, to successfully raise “chicks”) but that’s not the whole story.

We are not just biological entities—we are mental, emotional, and financial beings too. So, in addition to the reproductive advantages, there are plenty of other reasons why monogamous relationships are always in demand. Without going into too much detail, let’s assert that life is just better in a monogamous relationship. Health, wealth and happiness flourish within the trusting and protected confines of the pair-bond, making a loyal sex partner worth his (or her) weight in gold or far more. Be that as it may, in order to possess this gold, one must be willing to offer a comparable weight in return. And that is why we do monogamy “by the numbers.”

But can love really be assigned a price? The short answer is yes. Stripped (temporarily) of superfluous sentimentality and the gloss of romantic notions that surround them, monogamous relationships are at their core transactions. You give me this, and I’ll give you that. Love partners have many expectations for each other, both out in the open and hidden from sight, and it is amazing how many of these expectations are so obvious that people don’t even think about them. These expectations are really nothing more that price tags, reckonings of what will be spent for what kind of gain.

For example, Tim and Nancy have agreed to sleep only with each other. They have made a monogamy agreement. Now, when Tim doesn’t call Nancy for two days and Nancy begins to feel hurt, an unspoken expectation begins to surface. Does the fact that Tim hasn’t called for two days mean he doesn’t want to be with Nancy? Logically there is no basis to that assumption, unless there is some unspoken agreement that has been violated.

And there has. Frequent verbal contact, which provides a sense of being cared for, is a basic perk of relationships and everyone knows it on some level. Nancy has given Tim exclusive rights to her body and heart, and now Nancy expects Tim to call or make contact with her every day. Is this a legitimate expectation? Well, yes it is. A daily contact is par for the course between committed lovers and is a normal “standard of care” in a monogamous relationship (although insisting on two or more daily contacts is a different matter).

Tim’s task is to recognize and negotiate a response to this expectation. Of course, Tim needs and wants verbal contact too, but every three days works better for him. However, every three days is not the standard of care and so Tim needs to step up if he wants to keep Nancy from getting dissatisfied.

If Tim is smart he’ll agree to call her every day, but then he’ll feel like Nancy should give him something in return, like letting him control what time of day to call and how long the call will be, and that in turn is legitimate. In short, Tim and Nancy will have to cut a deal, guided by legitimate relationship standards.

Everyone has heard many times how essential good communication and compromise are to relationships—and this remains true. But we have a new take on this old advice—we’ll keep the good communication, but in place of compromise we’ll use trade. Instead of giving something up in a compromise, partners will trade for mutual gain. This creates an upward spiral of relationship wealth and prosperity. This is where the whole delicate science (and art) of negotiating a good relationship starts. Recognizing both the high value and the transactional nature of relationships is crucial to establishing one that works for you.

There are Standards to Guide Expectations

A popular misconception is that “all’s fair in love and war.” Well, I don’t know about war, but in love that’s a crock. There are definitely fair and reasonable standards of care that should be observed in love. People try to get away with outrageous stuff in relationships, mostly because they’ve think that whatever they want is legitimate. Then again, some people don’t get what’s owed to them, because they didn’t know they’re entitled. Most of these standards are just plain common sense—for instance, you shouldn’t make your partner do all of the cleaning and give nothing of equal value in return. But not all of these standards are so obvious.

One of the main tasks of this book is to lay down these standards of care—to my knowledge it has never been done before—where they can be used as a reference. For instance, it is considered standard to make contact with your partner either by phone or in person at least once daily, as we discussed. This is a standard of care that many people flout, and they shouldn’t. Standards will be discussed at length later in this book.

Your Partner is Replaceable

Yes, your precious darling, your soul-mate, the one whom you can’t live without, is replaceable. Truth to be told, there are thousands of people out there who could be a suitable mate for you, because being a good mate is not all that hard to do. Slackers must be sent packing. If your partner is not cutting the mustard, do not hesitate to “fire” him or her. Let cancelled partners know that you’ll take them back if and when they are ready to live up to standards of care. Do not be afraid to “fire” and “re-rehire” your mate as many times and as often as you need to until you get a fair deal. Later in the book we’ll outline criteria and procedures for canceling and re-starting partners.

People tend to hang on to their mates as if there was nobody else in the world to fill their shoes. Well, that’s just not true. That being said, just as you don’t just casually throw away a good automobile or a piece of valuable jewelry, the same holds true for the partner. If a partner is loyal and provides you with a reasonable standard of care and trades with you on an equitable basis, then he or she must be honored as a valuable asset and should be treated accordingly.

And yes, you are replaceable too. Don’t forget that.

It Really Is All About the Sex

It is important to establish from the outset the profound centrality of sex in the monogamous relationship. In fact, without sex the term “monogamy” becomes irrelevant. Sex must occur or a couple just doesn’t have “game.” I have heard of marriages in which the partners go for six months without sex, and I have heard of close romantic relationships between people who do not make love for any number of reasons, but these relationships are a whole different ballgame and operate under completely different rules than the standard monogamous relationship. In cases of medical impotence, illness, or in partners over 75 years old, kissing on the lips or neck adequately substitutes for sex. It must be made clear that substituting kisses for sex works only if a legitimate obstacle to sex exists. There’s no faking a sexual relationship. It is a generator of sincerity.

Sex is the basic transaction. Everyone knows this on some level but there is a fashionable tendency to downplay sex. Couples will seem to place a higher value on their friendship and emotional bond and will sometimes say that “sex isn’t that big of a deal with us anymore.” Don’t believe it. For instance, when defending him or herself against charges of infidelity, the accused lover will usually admit to “an emotional attraction” to another party, or perhaps even cop to giving money or other favors to a person of interest, but will be at pains to point out that “nothing physical happened.” This shows a tacit awareness that the physical act of sex has primacy over emotional bonding or financial considerations, which it truly does. Physically having sex crosses a line like nothing else.

Open relationships where other sex partners are brought into the mix, hidden infidelity, or threesomes or other group sexual activities immediately void a monogamous relationship and turn it into something else, in my opinion. Therefore, when thinking about sex in relationships, it is crucial to assign it a very high priority and to understand that sexual infidelity immediately voids a monogamous relationship even if the other partner isn’t aware of it.

Later sections of this book go into depth about sex and how to establish an equable sexual trade, and how to handle a broken monogamy pact. For now we brought up sex primarily to set the stage for defining a successful relationship.

How Do We Define Success in a Relationship?

There is enormous variety in the public mind about what relationships are for and what they should do. Some seek from the relationship nothing less than complete fulfillment in life; they seek to merge their identity into that of the beloved and lose themselves inside the relationship, or conversely to find an obedient and servile life-mate who will be an extension of themselves rather than a separate person. Some will give with no thought of return, while others will take with no thought of giving back. Then there are the jaded and cynical people who poke fun at monogamy and proudly avoid it because they don’t think it’s possible to achieve anything worthwhile from it.

There is a nebulous ideal in our culture that the best relationship is the one that needs no examination, that is a matter of the heart only, and that it is mystically regulated by a selfless mutual giving. In our romantic ideal, partners fulfill each other in a spontaneous out-flow of love. The partners offer their complete selves to each other and two become melded into one flesh.

On the other extreme are those who see marriage as a survival mechanism, within which they are powerless. It is entirely an economic situation, in which sex must be traded for food and shelter under duress. Monogamy is seen as a hell on earth or a necessary cross to bear.

Taking the disparities into account, one might be tempted to say that each couple must define success their own way, depending on what they want and their particular situation. This would be dead wrong. There is in fact only a single correct way to success in the love relationship, and that occurs when both partners give and receive a set of relationships services in equal measure.

Parity in a relationship is the one thing needful. Everything else is negotiable.

A successful relationship functions. A relationship is much like buying a car—you pay your money and you get a product. A car had better start up and take you from point A to point B or you’ve been ripped-off. The same applies to relationships. The successful relationship will not complete you as a man or woman, it will not by itself make you happy, and it will not merge two people into one flesh. It will get you laid and give you a nice companion who will meet some (not all) of your emotional needs. Those are the basics: the car drives from point A to point B, and the monogamous relationship gets you sex and conversation. From the basics, you can add on. .

That being said, just as owning a car can make you life a better place, so can a relationship. This addition of life-value we mentioned earlier does not, it must be remembered, spring directly from the relationship but tends to grow up around it as a side effect. And just as taking a taxi is not the same as owning your own car, monogamy is so much better than “playing the field” that there is no comparison.

The bottom line is that relationships are not really about “couples” at all—they are about separate people making a symbiotic deal. One must never lose sight of one’s individual autonomy in a relationship situation. Hard as it is, that’s the truth. It is every man (and woman) for him/herself. Once that fact has been absorbed, it actually makes it easier to reach out generously towards others. Self love is the basis of loving someone else, beyond a doubt. Only after you have your own basic survival needs under control can ask yourself: what do I have to offer to another person? Probably more than you think.

In summary: relationship success happens when two people get together, have sex exclusively with each other, talk, and trade their relationship offerings back and forth in equal measure. Ah, life can be so good when you have that going on!

The Monogamy Service Package

The “goodies” mentioned above are the things you can offer to partner. Every person brings a certain amount of “gold” (in the form of relationship services) to the bargaining table to transact the business of negotiating with a partner. These services make up a package which determines the parameters of the relationship deal. What is the package worth? The more services, the more valuable it is. A generous service package might include the following items (the first three in the box are not optional):

A monogamy pact (a mutual sexual exclusivity agreement)
Basic sexual access
Emotional support/daily verbal contact

Special sexual favors
Reproductive rights
Non-sexual touching: massage, cuddling, play
Conversation/ intellectual exchange
Financial contributions
Companionship at social functions and recreational events
Assistance with child-rearing
Assistance with household chores
Crisis management support
Investment in joint projects (portfolios, retirement, and real-estate)
Eye-Candy service (social status enhancement)
Style coaching




Take a quick mental inventory: What do you offer in your package?


When negotiating (or re-negotiating) a relationship, each partner brings their package to the table for exchange/barter on a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly basis. If all goes well, then the couple enjoys their commerce. But, if the exchange becomes unequal, resentment builds up. Everyone knows the gnawing sensation of discontent that comes when our partner doesn’t give us what we feel we deserve. Resentment is the root cause of relationship woes and can be prevented by achieving parity between partners. But, how do we do this? And how do we know when we have parity? How do we measure relationship transactions? We shouldn’t have to trust mere hunches and feelings to determine if parity is happening or not. There are ways of achieving and measuring parity, and that is what this book is all about.
Most people want to use all of their services (and receive payment back in kind), so the best partner is one who is offering a comparable package. The first step towards parity is to weed out and reject candidates who offer more services than you do or far less. If you’ve made a mistake and are in a relationship that is mismatched, then you already know you’re in trouble. It’s best to cancel these relationships (see chapter 9 on deal-breakers) rather then trying to continue them.


To Summarize Chapter One:

Relationships are a valuable commodity
Relationships are based on transactions
There are standards in relationship transactions
Your partner is replaceable (and so are you)
The most important transaction is sex
Success occurs when both partners give and receive in equal measure
Partners negotiate for equal exchange on an ongoing basis

DESIDERATA


GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & HASTE, & REMEMBER WHAT peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story. *** Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. (*) Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. (*) Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial As the grass. (*) Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. (*) You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. (*) Therefore be a peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. (*) With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy (*) (*)

FOUND IN OLD SAINT PAUL’S CHURCH, BALTIMORE; DATED 1692

Elena’s Hill
Grant Maher


Elena crawls slowly on her hands and knees up the steep grassy hill towards the spreading limbs of a huge oak tree sprouting from its crown. Limned like an oriental ink-painting against a gunmetal sky, the filigreed twigs and branches of the ancient tree fan out widely, ending in solid clumps of foliage. The whole effect is hypnotic and attractive to the girl. Elena’s wide brown eyes fix on the bulky dark bole of the main trunk as she scrabbles at the grassy earth, propelling herself up the slope one agonizing inch at a time. She must reach that tree.
But the pain, oh god, the pain; her head hurts like the times when she had bitten an ice cream cone. And what is this stuff? Around her nude limbs and torso what look like strips of linen bed-sheets tangle and drape and coil like snakes. Each movement is underwater slow, so…slow. There is so much resistance. And the young woman is tired, very tired.
“Don’t stop. Must not stop.” she whispers. A gusty wind snatches fitfully around her head like a distracted hand, and she realizes that she is alone. The iron sky, the gently rounded hill, the tree, and a wide blurry horizon in the grassy distance are her whole world. How long has she been here? She doesn’t know, but it has been perhaps a long time.
Wait, what’s that? A thin reedy voice carries on the wind, crackling with static and hard to make out. “Hispanic female, age 17… bummer… time will tell… we’ll get a repeat CT in a couple of…” Elena looks to her left, and sees two ghostly men in lab coats standing together. They fade in and out of focus like the turning of a kaleidoscope knob, then shred and blow away on the wind. Elena chokes back a cry. Come back!
A loud screaming explodes near her right ear. “Oh Dio! Oh Dio! Oh diodiodiodiodiodiodio…oh..dio…oh…dio…odiodiodiooooooo!”
The words smear together and ascend into a keening wail. A woman’s tear-streaked, swollen face appears before Elena. She is wringing her hands and bobbing back and forth. Her features convulse almost beyond recognition.
“Mom…Mom!” Elena stretches out her hand slowly. Her mother fades backwards and a man appears instead, eyes solemn and mouth compressed, dressed in a plaid shirt. “Mija,” he says softly, looking into her eyes.
“Yes Papa! I’m here, I’m here!” Elena tries to say, as Papa becomes translucent and disappears. Elena can’t muster the energy to think or feel. She must…get to the tree. Knee forward, then the arm and the hand; knee forward, then the arm, then plant the hand on the grass. Keep your eyes on the tree. How far is it, maybe a hundred yards? God, how tired she is and how frustrated with the fabric that encumbers her body! She tries to disentangle the confusing knots and twists in the sheets that are wound around her but they seem to grow only tighter. Why won’t they come off? Elena’s slim and dapper boyfriend Edgar now materializes next to her, and alongside is Omar, a classmate.
“Dude, you better hope she makes it,” Omar whispers hoarsely to Edgar, “or you’ll be in so much trouble.”
“She’ll make it,” replies Edgar, reaching towards Elena’s shoulder with a hand that becomes invisible as it gets closer and never touches her. “Won’t you baby? Yeah, you will. You have to make it. Do it for me, babe, do it for me.”
Elena motions for Edgar to help her remove the wrappings but he is already starting to flicker and recede. “I love you baby…” he says, pantomiming a kiss, and then both he and Omar disintegrate into what look like pixels on a video screen and disappear.
Elena gives up wrestling with the sheets and resumes crawling up the hill on her belly. Now she hasn’t the strength left to get up on her hands and knees. Even after a long time of crawling she doesn’t seem any closer to the tree. Elena sobs and shakes with frustration and the effort of moving.
“Elena, why are you crawling up this hill?” asks a smooth voice. A dark-haired lady in a powder-blue dress and matching high-heel pumps has appeared in front of Elena, and now crouches down beside her with an earnest expression on her kindly face. “Where ya goin’, girl?” she asks gently.
Elena thinks about this for a moment. “I don’t know. I just want to get to that tree up there.” Elena motions with her eyes towards the majestic tree.
“Ah yes, that tree,” says the woman. “It’s beautiful, of course. But look behind you, Elena. Look down the hill.” The woman places her warm hands in Elena’s armpits and gently hauls Elena around so she can see behind herself. “Tell me what’s down there.”
To Elena’s surprise, some way down the slope of the hill lays a beautiful blue lake, with a quay and a beach. How had she had missed it before? Shimmering and dancing as if seen through hot air, people swimming and sunning themselves on a sandy shoreline and a line of children waiting their turn in front of an ice cream stand are visible. Even though at a considerable distance Elena spots an old man in suspenders and a battered straw hat standing on the quay next to a little red sailboat, smiling and beckoning her to come and get into the boat.
“Grandfather…” says Elena. “My grandfather’s there with his red sailboat.”
The lady in the blue dress sweeps hair out of Elena’s face. “Yes, he certainly is. So, Elena, why don’t you just go on down the hill to him? It would be easy to get down there--just roll sideways down the hill like you did as a child and there you’ll be in a flash. Wouldn’t you like to get some ice-cream and go for a sailboat ride with your grandpa like you used to? He really misses you.”
Elena thinks for a long time, her face screwed up in concentration. “No, I have to get to the tree. I’m going to go to the tree now.” Elena groans and flops like a beached elephant seal until she until she is facing uphill and tries to creep forward again, but it’s obvious that she can’t do it; she scrabbles and grunts and writhes, trying to move her body, to no avail.
The lady in blue stands up straight and regards Elena’s struggle on the grass for a long moment, then sighs and shakes her head ruefully. She emits a soft snort, then sweeps back her own heavy dark hair with one hand and unclasps from her left ear an exquisite turquoise earring, heavy and round.
“Elena, I’ll help you get to the tree, but you must do exactly as I tell you. Will you do it?” she asks.
“Yes,” replies Elena. “I’ll do whatever you say. Please help me.”
“Here.” The lady opens Elena’s left hand and places the earring within the palm, then closes it up into a tight fist. “Don’t look at it; I’ve put an object into your hand. You must hold onto it and not open your hand for any reason. Do you understand? Do not open your left hand before you reach the tree or you’ll never make it. Keep the fist shut.”
“OK” replies Elena. “I won’t open my left hand no matter what.”
“It may hurt very, very badly,” the lady says solemnly. “Still you mustn’t open your hand. Can you do that?’
“Yes. I can do it. I will do it.” replies Elena.
“Good girl…now get going!” The lady pulls Elena up onto her hands and knees and gives her a nudge at the small of her back. “You can do it! Keep moving!”
The entangling sheets somehow fall away and Elena begins to crawl, her eyes on the bole of the great tree. The wind resumes with greater force and whips and moans around her. Keeping her left hand tightly clenched in a fist, and supporting her weight on the knuckles gorilla-style, she makes good progress. The object within her hand begins to vibrate and tingle like a cell phone on vibrate mode.
At last she’s getting close to the crown of the hill. The grass becomes shorter and more bristly. But what’s this? In her path lies a messy bundle of plain white bath towels lying on the ground as if tossed there by somebody. What are these doing here?
Elena pulls the towels apart, exposing what looks like a huge blob of strawberry jam. A sick feeling in the pit of her stomach warns her that she probably shouldn’t look at it. But she does look, and there is enough light from the steely sky to illuminate a little face peering up from down in the depths of the semi-clotted jam, a pale-pink face with flat watermelon-seed eyes that seem to hold secrets that its yet sealed slit of a mouth cannot tell.
“No, no, no, no…” murmurs Elena. The little face is topped by a bulbous translucent forehead laced with delicate blue veins and connected to a pale slug-body. Quaint pipe-stem limb buds tipped with rice-grain fingers and toes extrude outward. A pulsating waxy cord trails off down into the jelly. It’s alive, Elena thinks. Oh my God. I can’t leave this here. It will die. How can I carry it? I can’t open my hand…
Elena instinctively arrives at the only possible solution, and does not hesitate. Plunging her right hand into the red mass, she gropes and then pulls forth the dripping body, positioning it on her palm. Her first bite severs the waxy cord in a gush of warm slime. Her second takes the head, chest, and arms. She works her jaws hard, feeling rubbery proto-bones crunch like turkey gristle between her teeth. She swallows the semi-chewed chunks in several throat-stretching installments. Gouts of pulpy red liquid squirt from the sides of her mouth and drip down her chin. She almost gags. After a few deep breaths, she crams the bottom section into her mouth, chopping at the ragged hunk with savage grunting bites, jaw muscles aching from the effort. After heaving and dry-retching twice, the load decides to stay down.
Leaving the remainder of the mess behind in the towels, she crawls around and on up towards the tree, carrying the essential within her stomach. She rapidly covers at least a hundred yards, but the round object clenched in her left hand has now become burning, biting hot, stinging and smarting. She must not let go, and she will not. The tree is getting close enough now to see the striated details of its bark. Soon she’ll be under the protective canopy of its spreading branches and leaves.
OH, THE PAIN. Her left hand has been plunged into a deep-fryer. It is now massively swollen and bright red, with the redness and swelling reaching up the arm almost to her shoulder, advancing with each throb of her heart. Elena knows she will pass out from the pain at any time, and scrambles wildly the last few feet to the base of the tree, crunching over twigs and acorns on her bare knees. She lunges with her outstretched right hand and grabs a knobby old root swelling, and at the same moment her agonized left hand gives one last mighty heaving throb and explodes like a hand grenade, spattering her head and face with carpal bones and scraps of flesh. The flash of white light from the blast obscures the last thing she sees, the scarred trunk of the mighty oak. Elena screams long and loud, a movie scream, a scream to end all screams, and dies.
***
Beep…beep…beep…
Elena opens her eyes to find that she is lying on her back in bed looking at off-white ceiling tiles. An I.V pump is the source of the beeping sounds. Four women in uniforms are near her bedside, two bent intently over her left hand, manipulating it. Now there is no pain, only sensations of poking and pressure.
“God, it’s about time we got this hand open,” one nurse says. “She had it all contracted into a ball. And what the hell has been festering in there? There, see it? Pull that out.”
Something clatters to the floor and rolls under Elena’s hospital bed.
“Get that and put it in a specimen jar, and then let’s wash the crap out this hand. This is going to need antibiotics; there’s quite an infection here. No wonder the poor thing was screaming; that must hurt like hell. At least we know that she can scream now. That’s an improvement.”
Her companion reaches under the bed and comes up with a spherical turquoise earring. She wipes it with a tissue and holds it up to the light. “What a weird earring,” she remarks. “It’s like a miniature planet earth. Look, you can see all of the continents; there’s Africa. There’s South America.”
The first nurse snorts. “Well, someone around here has lost their planet in the wrong place, and I’d like to know who. Not the patient…no pierced ears, I don’t think.” She bends closer to check, and notices Elena has her eyes open and focused on her.
“Whoa, check this out. She’s waking up. Hot damn, we got to call the doctor!” she exclaims. “Can you hear me honey? Squeeze my hand if you can.” Elena squeezes the nurse’s hand with her right hand. The nurses cluster around, excited.
“Honey, you’ve been in ICU for around two weeks. We were starting to think you were never going to wake up,” the nurse tells her. “Can you understand me OK?”
Elena nods yes. She wants to say something but her mouth is incredibly dry. Where’s the tree? Where’s the hill? What has happened? She has no memory of events beyond a certain vague awareness of her life history. She has only a feeling of herself in the second person, as one would know the history of an actress. The room and people seemed insubstantial, wispy. The hospital linens seem to be the only real things. She notices how the sheets and gown encumber her body and twist around her as she tosses and turns in the bed. Her right wrist is tied and fettered with a cloth restraint “to keep you from pulling out your I.V.” The fetter prevents her from bending her right arm, and bothers her more than anything else. Her left hand is soon swathed in a bulky bandage.
Later in the day, after her parents, her doctor, and Edgar have visited, Elena’s settles into a fitful sleep. Nobody has told her anything, only variations on “You’ve been very sick, but we’re so happy that you’re getting better. Now get your rest, dear.” Now she is alone with the machines, the nurses, and the X-ray technicians. Late that night, a new dark-haired nurse in powder blue scrubs pays Elena a visit. After hanging an IV medication, the nurse turns on a light over the bed and props a newspaper against the inner side rail of the bed. She goes over to where a specimen jar sits on a shelf, removes a turquoise sphere, and after wiping it down with an alcohol swab, places it on her left ear to match the one dangling from her right. At the doorway to Elena’s cubicle she turns back briefly. “Carpe diem, dear--make use of the day,” she says to Elena with a smile, and then she’s gone.
Turning her head, Elena can make out the print on the paper and begins to read. A headline catches her eye.

San Jose Teen in Coma after Abortion

Seventeen year old student Elena Gutierrez lies in a coma at San Jose Medical Center and is expected to succumb from injuries sustained from an illegal abortion allegedly performed in the back room of a downtown apartment.
Gutierrez, a high school junior, allegedly had been desperate to end her four-month pregnancy but had “waited too long” according to Dr. Barry Hicks of San Jose Medical Center. “Nobody will do a late term abortion on a juvenile without parental permission, which she apparently didn’t have,” Dr. Hicks stated.
According to police detective Dale Jones of the San Jose Police, an unknown party then attempted the procedure illegally and botched the job—the teen had been carrying twins and only one of the fetuses was removed. Sepsis then set in, leading to meningitis, kidney failure, and finally coma, which has persisted for two weeks. The young woman is now expected to succumb to massive infection. “She’s a fighter, though,” remarks Dr. Hicks. “She has survived far beyond where we thought she would, or where anyone could be expected to survive.”
Incredibly, the remaining twin, a boy, clings to life in Elena’s womb. “When she dies we’ll have a double murder on our hands” said Officer Jones. “We need to get a message out there that illegal abortions that kill are prosecuted as murders and will have heavy consequences.”
No suspects have been identified so far in the case but police are questioning the victim’s eighteen year-old boyfriend, Edgar Morales, for possible leads. “This case shocks and saddens the whole community; a lot of things have to go wrong to produce a tragedy like this. Elena obviously slipped through some cracks, and we need to find and fix these cracks before someone else comes to grief,” said Jones. Anyone with information on this case should call the San Jose Police. Tips may be left anonymously.

Elena rubs her abdomen. So, I am not alone, she thinks. That’s O.K by me. That’s fine. I will make use of the day. Elena feels a prickle of joy, a tingling on her skin like sunlight, an alien but dimly remembered sensation that she thinks that she can get used to again. “Someday, maybe we’ll have a home by a lake, near an oak tree on a hill,” she whispers to her companion.

EL ZOPILóTE
By Grant Maher
Azuaga is a town in the west of Spain that serves as a central marketplace for livestock raised on the broad, upland pastures watered by the Matachel River. In the dusty streets of this town, the hooded and robed figure of Gregório the Monk went about the business of comforting the sick and dying. Each mid-morning, except Sundays, he would issue forth from la Manda del Opus Dei, a small mud-brick monastery on a barren hill to the north, and descend into the town to bring solace to those in need. At death-bed vigils, he would stay patiently by the dying person, praying and meditating until the final breath was drawn.
“There goes el zopilóte” (the vulture), people would remark to each other when he passed by, for wherever there was death, likely nearby would be found Gregório. It was rumored that he had a supernatural ability to sense where death would next visit, and to be waiting when it arrived. Because of this, the monk was thought to bring bad luck, and made many people uneasy.
Good-natured Gregório held no grudges over his reputation or moniker, and, idling afternoons in the cool tavern, would habitually and notoriously trumpet the merits of his namesake bird, which he held in high regard.
“Gentlemen” he began this afternoon, hoisting a shot of tequila, “A toast to el zopilóte, for of all God’s creatures, he alone is without the sin of murder. No other beast or man is as innocent of evil, or as pure of heart.”
Mutters of dissent went around. Men shook their heads. Old One-Hand Tomàs, lurking in his usual grotto against the back wall of the tavern in semi-darkness, where he would feed like a crab with his one remaining hand, called out from his sanctuary, “Bullshit! You’re soft in the head, priest. Vultures are nothing but feathered vermin, and always will be, so quit that crazy talk or take it somewhere else.” Heads bobbed in agreement.
Gregório threw back his toast alone, and motioned to have his glass refilled. Rosario the waitress sidled up and poured him more of the fiery amber liquid from a heavy octagonal bottle.
“Hear me out. The rabbit, the cow, and the goat must slay grass in order to survive—“
“No shit, they slay grass, eh? Oh, that’s bad,” said Rosario teasingly, eliciting laughter from the diners crowded onto on the oak plank benches around the rough-hewn wooden tables.
Gregorio went on. “Yes, now one might argue that grass merits little consideration, but none can deny that blades of grass are living things, and are murdered when consumed. All herbivores, then, are killers. Carnivores must pursue and dismember their living prey, and are without question steeped in guilty blood. And people, who eat both plant and meat, must by necessity demand the unceasing slaughter of living beings in order to exist.”
“Amen to that! That’s how we make our living, don’t forget,” said Ricardo, a tall rancher with a craggy, weather-etched face. “There’s nothing wrong with bistek, eh?” He motioned to the slab of meat sizzling on his oval platter. On most of the platters in this tavern there lay these big steaks, the specialty of the house, served with black beans and lots of corn tortillas.
Gregorio, unfazed, went on. “The vulture, by contrast, sails high in the azure sky, his mind tranquil and innocent, as any mind must be, at those lofty altitudes so close to God. When, perchance, he spies an animal far below that has perished by some natural cause, he takes with gratitude this gift of providence. He then descends to perform the useful function of digesting and returning the substance of the carcass to nature. The raw materials of the deceased are salvaged, and therefore he turns what was bad into good. Animal or vegetable he need never kill, nor cause to be killed. Thereby, he is blessed with perfect innocence, and surely must be beloved of God. I, an eater of animals slaughtered for my consumption, will never attain anything near el zopilóte’s perfect grace.”
Rosario said, “That’s for sure. You’ll be lucky to make it to heaven. Are you done now, padre? Gracias a Dios!”
“Hombres, want to shoot some vultures today?” called out One-Hand Tomàs again. “There’s plenty at my place for target practice!” The ranchers had a good laugh over this, but it trailed off to a nervous ending. The words of Gregório, although scoffed at, could not be entirely dismissed; some of the men felt twinges of guilt over the many vultures they had shot over the years in idle cruelty, and wondered if Díos should be petitioned for forgiveness—but then the conversation of all tavern-goers turned to things of more consequence.
On this particular afternoon the topic of consequence was a well-known and wealthy local rancher confined in la carcél on suspicion of slaying his young daughter’s suitor. It was said that he had surprised his daughter and her suitor making love in her bedroom and had tried to kill the man with a shotgun.
Ordinary folk may delight in a great man’s fall, but this specific great man was much loved by the populace for his gentle humility and proven charity, and so the gossip that went about was more inclined to malign the alleged victim, 18 year-old Rodólfo Sanchez, than the accused.
“I’ll bet you that the Sanchez boy tried to rape the daughter,” said Angelina, a heavy-set matron with curly hair. “I don’t trust his family. They don’t go back very far around here, and who knows from what stock they came from? And of course, the girl was not known as the kind to open her legs before marriage.”
Her friend Dolores, who sported a tie-dyed mumu that she filled out very fullsomely, agreed. “I’ve heard that they were originally from Cordoba, and moved here after some kind of a scandal. Maybe the boy’s old man was a bad apple, too.”
“Let’s not speak evil of the dead, shall we?” said Gregório, who had sat with the elder Sanchez as he lay dying from cancer two years before. “And let she who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Angelina made a fish-face. “You’re one to talk about sin, Gregório. You’ve got some kind of nerve! I’d cast a stone at you-- you’ll sleep with anything that moves, from what I hear. You’re a disgrace to the cloth.”
Dolores got up and put a hand on his shoulder. “So, what’re you doing tonight, you big, bad missionary man?” she drawled, batting her eyelashes.
Ricardo said “And here’s the twist in this case—which I heard straight from Rafael the deputy, who was in here just an hour ago. The police say that the rancher killed the boy, but they have no body. Supposedly he shot the kid, but they can’t find him, and they’ve searched the whole spread with dogs twice. No body, no crime, is how I understand it. They’ll have to let him go.”
“The sooner the better,” said Rosario, and the group muttered its assent. “He’s good people.”
Gregório was moved at this point to walk from the tavern to la carcél, which was no more than two blocks away, to speak himself with the accused man, and perhaps hear a confession. He found the rancher, a thick man with dolorous eyes named Don Candelário Perez, practically in tears. From behind the bars of his cell he told the following tale:
“When I found the boy with Carmelita in her upstairs bedroom at about eight that evening, after I had returned unexpectedly from an appointment, I attempted to block the doorway and so trap him in the room. However, he pushed past me with great energy, only partially dressed, and ran down the stairway to the first floor, and then out the front door. As I exited after him, shouting loudly, I took up the shotgun that stands there by the door and continued my chase into the side yard, where the boy was scrambling up my ivy patch, heading for the woods. I had just enough time to sight on him at about forty paces and give him both barrels.”
“So! It’s true; you shot him. What kind of pellets did you have in the gun?” asked Gregório.
“Just some birdshot—a pheasant hunting load,” said Don Perez, “which doesn’t excuse my action. To shoot someone! I had never considered myself capable. But I was out of my head with anger, just out of my head.” He put his forehead against the bars.
“Go on, please,” said Gregório softly.
Don Perez continued. “Sanchez did not react to the shots at all. Perhaps I missed him? Although, I must admit, it is unlikely. I am an expert wing-shot. He kept running, and I followed him into and then out of the woods by the crash and rustle of his noise, but then I lost him in the dark pastures beyond. Exhausted, I waited on a barren hillside for about half an hour, listening in vain for any tell-tale sounds, before returning to the house. There Carmelita, weeping, demanded to know the fate of her lover. We had a vicious argument, after which my wife demanded that I call the authorities and report the incident, which I did.”
“You did the right thing, Don Perez. I commend you for that,” said Gregorio. “But then, what happened? How is it you were arrested?”
Don Perez sat down heavily on his cell bunk, head in hands. “On the following day, Rodólfo did not return to his mother’s home and I was brought into custody on suspicion of murder by Rafael the deputy. They think that I met up with Rodólfo in the woods that night and finished him off, and then buried him or something. But did I kill the boy? Sure, I filled him up with birdshot, but he ran like a champion afterwards and I cannot see how he was mortally wounded. And, I swear I did not find him or conceal his body. I just wish he could be found so we would know one way or the other. If I have killed him, I will of course take responsibility and accept my punishment.”
Promising to return the following day, Gregório then left him, turning west down the Cálle Guadiana towards the outskirts of town and the Perez ranch, which he had become curious to see. The sight of the hooded monk walking solemnly past her home, which happened to border this road, elicited from the recently-widowed mother of Rodólfo Sanchez a series of little muffled screams as she covered her face in horror or despair. Gregório paid her no attention, as he was not coming to see her just yet.
Far away in the slanting mid-afternoon sun, high in the sky, Gregório’s eyes had fixed upon a dark speck circling against a backdrop of blue. He walked steadily towards this speck as a marine navigator will fix upon the North Star to guide his ship. Leaving the town, he angled straight across brushy draws and up and down thinly wooded, sere hills, always glancing up to check his reference point, which held steady and, Gregório knew, would not waver. After an arduous hike and not a few thorns, he at last stood craning his neck, directly underneath the circling speck. He then leveled his gaze at his surroundings and asked himself, and his guide, “What is here, brother? What do you see?”
He stood near the edge of a steep and rocky defile, which marked one side of an arroyo which gashed the hillside. Peering over the lip, he viewed the broccoli-like tops of green oaks which grew up from the floor of the arroyo, but which did not reach the top of the rocky wall. After much careful examination, Gregório descended to the base of this cliff, and after still more looking around, discovered young Rodólfo Sanchez wedged high in the branching foliage of a gnarled old oak, which had effectively hidden him from man and dog, but not from the keen eyes of the vulture. Moreover, he was still breathing, although bloody and unconscious.
After three days of convalescence in the local hospital, Rodólfo felt well enough to receive visitors. Gregório took a seat by the window, intending to stay the whole day, and teased out an account of what had taken place at the Perez ranch.
Rodólfo was a cocky lad, even after his close call with death. “If old man Perez knew half the things Carmelita and I had already done, he’d have a coronary,” he said while sitting up at lunch. “I mean, he needs to understand that these are not the olden times, sabes? Young people are not these naïve virgins that he imagines us to be. And that wasn’t our first time in her bedroom. We just got unlucky, I guess.” Rodólfo dug into his chicken pot pie with relish. “I love it when they serve English food. You want to try a bite, patron?”
Gregório tried a bite, and agreed that it was delicious. “Surely you know that Don Perez is very remorseful about hurting you, despite the fact that you have brought him great anguish?”
Rodólfo looked at the bulky bandages that covered the left side of his chest. “I don’t really blame the old man. No hard feelings. I have asked the cops to let him go, but they still want him to answer to charges. There’s nothing I can do about it.” Rodólfo started in on his side salad.
“So tell me then, what does it feel like to get shot?” asked Gregório.
“Truth to tell, I hardly noticed being shot at all. Something hit me, like a handful of sand, but I gave it no thought. I didn’t realize I’d been shot until I stopped running and found my shirt completely wet with blood. I didn’t even know where all the blood was coming from. Later I found out I had been punctured by about a hundred pellets all along my left side and leg. The surgeon said he picked birdshot out of me for almost an hour.”
“And then, how did you wind up in the tree?” asked Gregório, snagging a half-banana from the lunch tray and starting to peel it.
“Well, I thought I had better get back to my mother’s house and get cleaned up. I wasn’t thinking too clearly; I couldn’t grasp the situation all that well. I began to walk back towards the lights of town as best as I could, and that’s all I remember until I woke up in this hospital room. I’ve thanked you at least ten times already for finding me, patron, but I’ll say it again—thank you. You saved my life. And thanks to God for the tree, and the vulture who circled over me.”
Gregório smiled. “I’m glad you remembered to thank the Big Man.”
In the aftermath of his crime, Don Perez served a four month sentence for aggravated assault, paid a hefty fine, and had his shotgun confiscated. Young Sanchez never returned to woo Carmelita, and instead went to Cordoba to study law. Carmelita took on a cautious new suitor.
Credited with saving the boy, Gregório’s reputation with the townspeople improved. “There goes el zopilóte,” the gossips would still say, but with a new tone of pride. The mother of young Sanchez, in her gratitude, began to host Gregório at her home, often overnight. Predictably, he continued to orate in the Azuaga tavern about the admirable qualities of his namesake bird, with the difference that now some would believe, and with him toss back tequila in his honor. There was even talk, encouraged by Gregório, of erecting a small bronze statue in the town square in honor of el zópilote, and speculation about who would be commissioned for the work became a popular topic in the tavern.
If one were to visit Azuaga today, one might indeed encounter in the square a unique bronze statue, either of man or bird, or some curious combination thereof.

Grant Maher, looking sidelong at the universe with an indulgent gaze.

I Am Grant’s Pancreas

I lay like a banana slug behind Grant Maher’s stomach. Well, like a banana slug except that I am not yellow, and I’m larger than a banana slug. But I’m really shaped like one. I am a pinkish white, lobed mass weighing about a pound, connected by a duct to Grant’s gut and hooked by arteries and veins into his blood supply. Stretchy-tough connective tissue holds me in place, and Grant’s lower rib cage and thick abdominal wall shield me from trauma, which is a good thing because the enzymes and hormones that I make are essential to his health and life.
I ceaselessly pump pancreatic juice through my pancreatic duct into Grant’s duodenum, where it mixes with chyme, the soupy liquid that exits from the stomach after the gastric acids have started to break down the protein in Grant’s food. The pancreatic juices contain the enzymes amylase and lipase that continue the digestion process, breaking down carbohydrates and fats. I also secrete insulin into Grant’s bloodstream, regulating the metabolism of glucose throughout his body, but listen, this ain’t no friggin’ biology lesson here. I want to talk about Grant’s idiotic behavior.
Grant is of Irish extraction, see, and he tends to drink too much. I don’t know the exact brand names of the liquors that he pumps into his gut, but all of them contain plenty of ethanol alcohol, and that causes trouble down here. Alcohol, taken in large amounts over time, will cause me to start digesting myself, and that would double Grant up with pain and put him in jeopardy of his life. So why does he do that shit? Is he a moron? Plus, the stomach (a good friend of mine) takes a hit from alcohol too, overproducing acidic gastric juice, which then fizzes up into Grant’s esophagus and burns it. As a consequence Grant has to take a pill for his gastro-esophageal reflux disease, or GERD. And his brain loses neurons, too. The drinking behavior is a crime.
And then there is Grant’s diet. He loves greasy food. Why does he love that shit so much? Is he from Greece? Hell, he’s a little Celtic guy, so he should stick to his boiled potatoes and cabbage –but no, it’s Thai food one night, tofu the next, sushi the next, Mexican the next, so there’s no regularity. The only sure thing is that he’ll always gravitate towards the greasiest and/or oiliest foods on the menu. The result is that I’m probably the hardest working pancreas in the western USA. I have to whip my secretory cells into a frenzy of production every time he eats a greasy meal and then washes it down with liquor, which has been a daily occurrence for quite some time now. Grant could very well wear me out, and then where would we be? Up a creek, that’s where.
But lately there have been small signs of sanity. He doesn’t stay up all night anymore at that jail job. He’s been doing sit-ups here and there, and walking more. I think he feels his age coming on, and he’s starting to ponder his own frailty, and that’s a good thing. I’ve been screaming at him “don’t you see yourself when you look in the mirror, old man?” You see, it has taken Grant a long time to grow up, and he’s still basically a four-year-old boy most of the time. Well, keep your youthful mind-set, chum, but remember that your cellular chattel, your grip on the planet, your legacy from nature, is mortal. Take care of me, Grant, and I’ll let you frolic on this world for quite a few more summers. Burn me, and we both go down. There, that’s what I wanted to say.

First Day of Professor Mardue’s Writing Class


“Welcome, students, welcome. I am professor Mardue, pronounced Mar-doo-way, not Mar-doo. Please don’t call me professor Mar-doo. Our family is from Argentina. We don’t say it Mar-doo. We say it Mar-doo-way.

“Now that you’re all in your seats, the first thing we do is take out all of paper, pens, or pencils, and place them on the desks. Yes, anything that you can write with, or write on, put right there on your desk-top. I will collect it. I am coming around with my trash-can. See, I’m putting all of your writing stuff in this old blue trash can. My hungry trash can is eating up all of your stuff. Goodbye yellow pencil, goodbye green felt-tip, goodbye red binder. There, there and there; all gone. You won’t need any of that stuff from now on.

“I know exactly why you’re here. You are here to get help with your writing. You all have been identified as ‘problem writers.’ Everyone in this room has tried the standard remedies, and they haven’t worked—your problems still persist. That is because your other classes were too lenient and you got away with murder. But not here, not now. Your problems with writing are over.

“That is because you will never write again. Not a shopping list, not a note to your friends, not a diary entry, not an email. You are hereby forbidden to write even a single letter of the alphabet. You may not write numbers. You may not write your name. For you, language is spoken only—any other kind of representation you may not do. You’ve had your chance, and you have shown that you cannot handle writing. Normal people can handle a little bit of writing, but for people like you, complete abstinence is the only cure. There is no such thing as writing ‘in moderation’ for the real problem writer. Don’t even think about it.

“What is that, Hermann? Snickering? I assure you that this is no joke. And what is that sticking out of those baggy pants? Your cell phone…I see. Give that to me. No, I’m not going to throw your phone away, Hermann, I just want to hold it up for the class to see. You see Hermann’s phone, everyone? Yes, Lily, it is a very nice phone—a Raz-R, if I’m not mistaken. Now, I push this button, and what do I see? Yes, Hermann has been sending and receiving text messages. Look, I can see what day and time he sent his very last one. I show you this because I will be randomly checking cell phones for the rest of the term. If I find any sent text messages dated after today—instant F. And don’t even think about sending email—I have ways of checking on that. No writing! No writing! No writing!


“What is that, big boy in the impossibly large athletic shirt? Did I hear you cough so as to cover up the phrase “psycho-nerd” that you keep muttering under your breath to your gangster friends? Keep that up and you’ll get a big fat 'F.' Now how would that look on your transcript?

“Let’s get out our textbooks. We are going to do a group reading about the history of the English language. Would you start please, short girl in the way-too-skimpy beige skirt with the fringes on it? Page 22, where it says ' The Celts...'

Less than a week later Mardue made his first bust—Antoine was caught with math homework sticking out of his backpack. Mardue let him off with a warning. Soon infractions of the no-writing rule began cropping up everywhere. Hermann taunted Mardue openly with a rambling six-page essay on tattoos that he had put together for sociology class. Before he knew it, Mardue was neck-deep in student writing of all kinds; he was kept frantic ferreting out the forbidden writing and making threats about grades. The students seemed to enjoy the vein-popping rages that frequently overtook Mardue as he discovered violation after violation.
The following Thursday principal Smalley, short and rotund, checked on Mardue and found the room awash in the printed word. Students were bent over their desks writing, others were taping specimens of writing to the wall, and still others were reading aloud from things that they had written, competing to be heard.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Mardue, you really have ‘em working,” said Smalley, taking in the scene. “Most of our composition teachers can’t get any work out of ‘em at all.”
“It’s pronounced Mar-doo-way,” Mardue corrected Smalley, licking his lips and nervously twisting one end of his moustache between long, spidery fingers, “Mar-doo-way. Not Mar—doo.”