90

"I think John Pizzell is retarded."

Claire looked over her shoulder at Mike who was sitting at the other computer. "Why is that?"

"Because he refuses to spell check and uses random capital letters in his posts."

Facebook was really beginning to bother Mike who was a stickler for proper English. He couldn't even use abbreviations while texting, but, then again, neither could Claire. "Don't worry, Mike. It's just the breakdown of civilization."

"Yeah, but he's promoting his 'professional' business! He should really try to be professional." Mike closed the Facebook window in frustration. "Are people's brains really being rewired?"

Claire swiveled around in her chair. "Are you asking me to start a new study?"

89

The walls were beginning to close in. The books and piles of folders loomed. Scraps of paper were stuffed and taped in any available space. Dust and crumbs and the occasional dessicated insect littered surfaces. Even the back of the faded red sofa was dusty. Balls of cat hair tumbled under tables, gathering more and more until they caught on the edge of a throw rug or under the long drapes.

Lauren had once wondered how anyone could go more than two days without a shower, but she eventually found that five was her magic number. After five, she started to itch.

88

A woman stood in the art gallery, her back to the large windows facing the street. Her weight was on her left hip and her body made a slight curve. Her hair was not long, nor was it short. Her clothes were gender-generic and neutral in color. The woman stood still for long moments before suddenly shifting her feet or pushing on her hair and returning to her neutral, if slightly bent, position.

The art was blurry from a distance. Smears of color washed in art gallery spotlight. Small squares of canvas were dwarfed by large expanses of pristine white walls. There were no frames.

87

"What the hell am I suppose to do?"

Mrs. Kirby continued to shuffle paperwork. She sucked on her invisible braces and looked everywhere except at her client.

"I need to see a doctor. I ain't got enough money to see a doctor but you telling me I got too much money, somehow. How? How is that?"

Mrs. Kirby opened her mouth and closed it again.

"I don't even have nothing for them to take when I can't pay. My car? How am I suppose to get to work, then?"

Another service worker peeked over the cubicle divider and looked worried.

"You don't write the rules, is that what you wanna say? You just follow the rules? Is that it?"

Mrs. Kirby tipped her chin up.

"I see. You don't care because you got your nice job with benefits. Or you did care but now you don't because you think I'm mad, that all your "clients" are mad, at you. Is that it? I'm not mad at you excep' for the fact that you don't do nothing to help change the system. You don't ask questions. You don't even answer my questions!"

The security guard wandered in from the hallway and waited at the door.

"Mrs. Kirby, you should quit your job to-day. It has taken your soul. You ain't helping nobody, not even your own self. You are just like all these forms you make all us fill out and send back again and again when there's parts we missed. You a government form. Nothin' but, and just as soulless. Quit, Mrs. Kirby. Maybe I see you around when you found your soul again. Or maybe I'll be dead."

86

Cindy had a carefully crafted persona that become most obvious to the rest of the world when she began insisting her name was spelled "Sin-Dee," complete with the dash. Her persona-crafting, however, had begun in second grade. Cindy could pinpoint it herself, if she chose to (though she didn't,) as the moment her elementary school crush, Matt, said she looked like his mother.

In Matt's defense, Cindy did look like his mother, especially on that particular day. Cindy had been wearing a cream-colored cardigan with faux pearls sewn down the front. She had also gotten a new haircut--the "Dorothy Hamill"--that didn't suit her, but was the same style worn by Mrs. Anderson (Matt's mother.) Finishing the look, Clumsy Kelley had just dropped the box of loose crayons on the floor at Cindy's feet. The face Cindy made, combined with the fists-on-hips stance she took, struck the boy Matt so profoundly, that he blurted, "You look just like my mom does when she's mad."

Sin-Dee today has a penchant for black, several piercings and several more tattoos; however, if Matt would have walked by the bar where Sin-Dee worked on this particular evening and saw the look she was giving a patron who had just knocked the drink from her hand, he may have found himself again blurting, despite the tramp-stamp, "You look just like my mom does when she's mad."

85

When I was ten, a guy opened the front screen door and caught me by surprise while I was watching Tom and Jerry in the afternoon. It seemed that I moved so slowly, like you do in those terrible dreams, and my head was still turning towards him as he straddled me on the old sofa. My step dad threw that sofa out while I was still in the hospital. I came back and we had a new, blue sofa from that warehouse that sells crappy sofas and crappy mattresses. It was the first time I recognized being grateful to anyone for anything.

The guy moved fast while I moved slow. My legs and right hand were pinned and my Kool-Aid spilled on the carpet. I shouldn't have had it on the floor, I thought; Mom would be mad. Even though my left hand was free, I somehow didn't think about it and it lay there, useless. The only thing I did do was yell. I had great lungs and I really let loose. The guy got so mad, he screamed at me to shut up, shut up, or I'll slice your throat.

Well, that was it; I heard he'd slice me and I screamed even more. I drowned him out, the TV out, the traffic out. I screamed and screamed--it was the only part of me that worked. He stopped trying to pull off my pajama pants, the ones with the perky princesses on them, and pulled out a serrated knife. I didn't think it possible, but I screamed even louder. I suppose that was good because the neighbors who visited the hospital told me that scream was what made them come down. The guy sliced my throat.

You figure you'd die. It stung terribly for a second then, nothing. I gushed blood all over him and he hopped back. I grabbed my throat, one finger going into the slit, and out again. Mr. James, our upstairs neighbor, squeaked open the screen door, and the guy freaked. He freaked and ran. Mr. James breathed, "Oh, my God." I'd never heard a grownup sound scared, but he sure did. I thought Mr. James left, but I guess he found a towel in the bathroom. He rolled it up like I would for swim class and pressed it to my neck. "Hold this here, Bria. Hold it tight. I'm going to call for help."

We didn't have any phone, so he ran back outside. I was scared the guy with the knife would come back, but other neighbors started looking through the screen. I sat on the old sofa with the towel on my neck. I heard Mr. James yelling outside, "Help! We need help! Call an ambulance! There's a girl hurt! Help!"

There's never a cop too far away in our neighborhood, which in this case was good. Mr. James held the screen and a younger cop strode in until he saw me. He must not have believed Mr. James or thought he was exaggerating, but when that cop saw all the blood and me with a bloody bath towel and with the red Kool-Aid on the floor and sound of Tom running after Jerry, he skidded to a stop. The older cop that came in behind him didn't hesitate. He knelt down by me, right in the blood and cherry Kool-Aid, to tell me it would all be okay. He asked me if I could talk. I nodded, though I wasn't sure. He asked me what happened. I swallowed, but it hurt and I cried a little then. I held the towel tighter and told him about the guy with the knife. I saw my pajama bottoms were on the floor, and I cried again. I can't believe it, thinking back, but I was partly embarrassed to have my pants off, and partly upset because those were my favorite PJ bottoms.

84

Jere pulled back the door's curtain just as some kid walked up to ring the bell. The kid screamed and dropped the raffle tickets he was holding.

"Sorry," said Jere. "I didn't mean to scare you." Jere's bare feet came into the kid's view. The toenails were dirty and long. A mangy cat sped out of the house and scattered the remaining raffle tickets.

"It's okay, mister. I'm okay. I was just..." The smell from the house hit the kid and he gagged on his words.

"Let me help you," said Jere, squatting and picking at a ticket. Jere's short robe rose up his rashy thighs and the kid gagged again, turning his gaze away too late, too late. For the rest of the kid's life, the image of scabby knees spreading wide as Jere squatted before him would resurface whenever he was under stress, and once when he looked in a pot of boiling roast.