Taken at the plaza next to the Lyon Auditorium in Lyon, France.
Knit One, Purl Two
Fiction by Jason Edwards
She’s a spy and he doesn’t even know it. They sleep together and he tells her secrets, but her favorite part are these walks in this little park, tucked between his office building and hers and a few others. A secret park, something for top-floor executives to look at while they execute orders for, well, let’s face it, execution. The spy game is a dirty game, it’s all about money, and sex, and occasionally killing people.
She’s not afraid of any of that, and if her bosses told her to kill him she would, because it’s her job and she’s good at her job. But there’s nothing wrong with taking a few moments to walk through a park on a nice day with a nice guy and talk about nice things like a new pair of shoes she’s going to buy, about a sale they’re having, about the dress they’ll go with and the lipstick she’ll put on, just for him. He’s married, so they can’t go out, of course, he can’t take her someplace fancy, but then she doesn’t need fancy, she just needs those secrets. So she can do her job and get paid and buy shoes.
It’s way more complicated than that, of course, and she’s not some stereotypical floozy who gets hot and bothered over a pair of marked-down pumps. Except she is. Obviously, she’s not, she’s a spy, a good one, on the fast track to promotion and maybe even a shop command or, if the wind blows just right, a spot in the leadership, a policy maker. But speaking of wind, there’s a delicious breeze coming over that small green hill, there’s a shady spot underneath the tree as the path turns, making her shiver, there’s that old woman on a park bench, knitting something for her great-grand kids. Steel blue knitting needles, winking in the sunlight.
This small park nestled between tall buildings, this is the only time of day it gets any sunlight.
***
He’s a spy and she doesn’t even know it. Seducing her was easy, mostly because she was probably told to let him, and now he feeds her bad intel so his bosses can play games with her bosses. But this part he doesn’t like, listening to her drone on and on about shoes or lipstick or something, these stupid walks in this shitty little park where no one goes. He likes the sex even though she isn’t very good at it, but then neither is he. It’s just that, after sex, he sleeps better, and normally, he doesn’t sleep very well.
Mostly because he’s killed so many people. It really gets to him. Other guys, and gals, in his shop, they seem to deal with it so well. Get a job, get close, make the hit, move on. Sometimes they even sleep with the future-deceased, just to get their guard down. How can they do that. Do they imagine walking in the park with them, day after day, so mind-numbingly bored that it’s either kill or commit suicide?
This is why they took him off hits, put him on counter-counter, not exactly a chump’s game, but not nearly as exciting as executions. But oh well. It has its perks. She thinks he’s married, thinks she tricking him with the pillow talk, lets him do things to her that a lot of women wouldn’t. So he’s conflicted. Which is why, when they turn the corner, and there’s the old woman, but this time her knitting needles are blue, a small tear falls from his eye.
Blue is the signal for assassination. He’s just not sure if its sadness or relief that makes him cry.
***
She’s an old woman, but everyone thinks she’s a spy. Ha. She’s just an old woman, nestled in that sweet spot where she’s got enough income to stretch out her final years, but not enough to worry about politics. Men in suits and cold office buildings dictate world policy, a million peasants in some back water die, the minimum wage goes up and down, and she just wakes up and goes to the park and does some knitting, waiting for the mid-day sun. Feels good, deep in her bones.
She’s had a life. She’s gone from innocent to informed to impassioned to jaded to indifferent to philosophical to, well, there’s no word for the final stage. Zen, if you believe in that Buddhist crap. But she’s not going to slap on a pair of tight pants, squat down on a shiny purple mat and make her joints go pop for the entertainment of the universe. She’ll just wake up, have her tea, open her mail, and walk down to the park.
They think she’s a spy because she’s here almost every day. A bunch of office buildings filled to bursting with agents, special agents, double agents, assassins, operatives, provocateurs, and analysts. And so my bureau men. So many executives, so many suits. She’s seen more dead drops than Carter’s got pills. It was entertaining once, now it’s just background noise. She sits and knits. Her grandson, sweet kid, he sends her picture of her great-grand daughter, requests for more booties. He even sends her knitting needles.
But she can’t find the ones he sent her last week, so today, she’ll use an old blue pair. Use to be her favorites.
Archaeologists Speculate that Beer Was Instrumental in the Formation of Civilizations
“Archaeologists speculate that beer was instrumental in the formation of civilizations.”
-Wikipedia entry for “Beer.”
Beer. When was it invented, why, how, who knows. Actually, I’m certain quite a few people know. Probably know the exact day, the very minute. Some monk sitting in a chilly monastery, hands cupped reverently, holding a beautiful brown heap of barley. Ah.
This bar is a monastery, the glass in front me a chalice, an icon of worshipfulness. I have a slight buzz. It’s quiet in here, middle of the day. Dark. The smell of stale beer from the floor, a sweet smell, a little sour, as familiar as the sweat on the back of my neck, rapidly cooling. I walked here, for a beer, and I’ll walk back home again when I’m done. What’s a few miles. Monks balanced kegs on the backs of donkeys and walked further to get that golden stuff to their other brothers in other monkeries.
This table where I sit almost every Tuesday. That waitress. No, we call them servers now. Jeans and a t-shirt with the bar’s logo on it, hair in a pony tail, toothy grin. Probably in college. No, probably dropped out of college. No, probably never went. Why bother. A few roommates, a three-a-month novel habit, discounts on bar-burgers. It’s not a bad life. I’m not jealous. But as I hold that cold glass in my hands, consider the bubbles rising, consider the deep yellow, I think, I could do that. I could work in a bar.
Over there in a booth a guy and a girl are in deep conversation over a plate of French fries. He looks too old for her. A dozen scenarios run through my head. He’s her older brother, and they’re trying to figure out what to do about Grandma. He’s her lecturer at the university, they’ve been dating for two semesters, and they have to end it, his wife is getting suspicious. He’s her boyfriend’s best friend from college, and they’re planning an intervention. I take a sip of my beer.
Scratch that: gulp. More like a quaff. My glass is empty. Sunlight manages to negotiate a few clouds and the tinted windows, coats the foam left behind.
At the bar itself, fella in sweats, sweaty, running-shirt, sweaty, ball cap, sweaty. After he finishes his beer, when he gets up to hit the head, that bar stool is going to be sweaty, too. I know this from experience. I’ve run to bars before.
Never ran from one, though. This is no biker bar, there will be no fisticuffs here. It’s quiet, old Sub Pop concert posters on the walls. No pool tables, a menu full of foodie food. And pulls too hip for townies but not redneck enough for hipsters. My server comes over, points at my glass. I just smile. She smiles back and takes the glass away.
Behind the bar, the owner, big fella, pear shaped until you get to his head, that beard, those black-rimmed glasses. On a Tuesdays if the server’s not there, he serves me himself. When I’m done with one, he’ll say, how’d you like that IPA? And I’ll sort of nod and smile and say something like, I hope you’ve got more.
Another beer appears in front of me. I watch the server walk away. She stops at the booth with the couple. They look up at her, almost startled. I can’t hear what they say, but she takes away their half-eaten plate of French fries. Must be serious, if you can’t even finish your fries.
My phone makes a noise in my pocket. I fish it out. Text message from the wife. Grocery store on the way back home. Milk, bread, eggs, something. I quaff once more. Before I leave, I drop too many bills on the table. Maybe it’s a four-a-month novel habit. I don’t want to assume anything.
Camel at the WA State Fair (Photo of the Day)
WA State Fair
There’s No I in Barbecue
It needs to get warm soon. I need to sit on my back porch, next to the grill. A beer in one hand and a book in the other. Or a baseball game on the radio. Birds twerping, the sound of the distance highway a dull buzz, like the quiet roar of the ocean. But mostly that barbecue, ribs and pork shoulder and burgers stuffed full of onions. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
I’m sitting here at a kind of barbecue school. Mostly it’s a bunch of folks sitting around folding tables, watching a power point presentation on how to smoke meats. Across from me, turned to watch the slides, are two guys who couldn’t be more different. One of them I know. We’ll call him James—he went to MIT. He works for SpaceX. He’s got a wife who flips houses for a living. No kids. He’s maybe 32 years old.
Next to him, the other fella, I can only guess, but, early sixties? Gray pokes out from beneath his Mariners ball cap. His satin jacket is black, has a patch on the shoulder that reads “National Softball Championships, Las Vegas, 2014.” I got money that says he went there to watch his daughter play.
James is a friend of mine—we met in a coffee shop about 10 years ago. He was fresh out of school, working for Microsoft. It’s the same coffee shop where I met my future wife, and where he met his future wife. I guess that’s a Seattle thing, coffee shops and all.
The other guy, though, if I had to guess, gets into the Seattle city limits maybe twice a year. And even then it’s only the southern tip of Seattle. I’m not trying to stereotype, and I could be very wrong. But me, I’m from Wichita Kansas, originally, and you kind of get a knack for knowing your own. Graduate high school, maybe go to trade school, work in machine shop for twenty years, finally get promoted to management, kind of like retirement but the coffee’s not as good.
James, for what it’s worth, is taking notes. His got a yellow legal pad, and he’s writing down pretty much everything the guy giving the presentation says. Temperatures for different cuts of beef, how to caramelize with a hot skillet, tricks for making a marinade that isn’t too salty.
The other fella, the one in the soft ball jacket, just nods his head every few seconds, like he knows it all already. He probably does. I wonder why he’s here.
Me, I’m here to learn, sure, but also to eat. My wife signed us up for this class, because we’re going to eat what we cook. Of course, some recipes require more time than we’re going to be spending in the class, so there’s already meat on some of the grills. And the aromas in the smoke are making me drool.
I didn’t go to MIT, but I did go to college. I never worked in a machine shop, but I’ve gotten my hands dirty more than a few times. If James wanted to strike up a conversation about, I don’t know, quantum state bubbles drives to shave another three ounces off a booster rocket, I could listen. If this softball fella wanted to tell me about the time his daughter met fast-pitch ace Jenny Finch, I’d be interested.
But I think those conversations would have to happen on my back porch. With a beer in our hands, birds twerping overhead. On that grill, a couple of pounds of prime tip, smoking away, making us hungry, something we all have in common.
A Red Rock (Photo of the Day)
Red Rocks Amphitheater, Colorado
A Different Kind of Work Out
Ten oh five on a Saturday morning, and it looks like Dave isn’t going to show up. I’m standing in a parking lot with three other guys. A Crossfit gym, a “box” somewhere in Seattle. At least it’s trying to be a nice day. The rain is down to just a few drops and the sun occasional peeks from behind bored gray clouds.
We’re all pacing, geared up and ready to get in there and wreck our bodies. Me, I ran here from my house, just a mile or so away. On one of my first days at the gym, Dave said “we don’t do the same workout twice. That’s the problem with runners—always doing the same thing, over and over again, their bodies adapt.” I wish. I’d love to adapt enough to survive the half marathon I signed up for next month.
One of the guys says, “Had to wake him, last week. I showed up at nine, had to bang on the door.”
I furrow my brow. “Wait, does Dave live here?”
The guy nods, and the other two guys look up, paying attention. “Yeah. He moved out of his old place a few months ago.”
I think about why I’m here. I’m getting old, getting fat, need a shock to my system. The good life has made me comfortable, I could say, if I was given to that sort of musing. Maybe I should live in a gym too. Nothing to do all day but pick up heavy weights, cleaning up after every class. Arms like a gorilla. Calves like tree trunks.
One guy checks his watch a few times. I’m tempted to go up to the door, cup my hands against the glare and peer in. What am I going to see? A guy in sleeping bag, laid out next to a pile of dumb bells, his dog curled up at his feet?
Another guy says, “I saw him after the last class, yesterday. He was heading to a bar with my roommate.”
We all chuckle. As if that explains everything. I can’t imagine what a 6 foot, 250 pound guy with 5% body fat has to drink to get too drunk to be up by ten in the morning. He’s not paying for drinks with the money I’ve given him—I used a Groupon.
Ten past ten. Our pacing has slowed a little bit. By now we would have been through our warm-ups. Dave would have given the Crossfit vets their Workout-of-the-Day, and they’d be doing some preliminary exercises. Us newbies would be picking up an empty barbell and putting it back down again. Concentrating on form. Dave would be adjusting his glasses, telling his dog she’s a good girl for staying out of the way. I’d be thinking about that stupid half marathon, and how losing ten pounds would sure help a lot.
A car drives by the parking lot entrance, and we all turn to look. And then I realize I’m sort of hoping he doesn’t show. I want to work out, I want to feel the burn, I want to be a little bit proud of myself. I also want to, well, not.
“God damn it,” the guy, the one who said he’d woken Dave up last week, mutters to humself. Then he smiles “Well, I guess I can always come back at noon.” He turns and wanders towards his car.
The other guy, the one with the roommate says, “Alright fellas.” He looks at his watch, smiles, shakes his head, and walks off too.
Me and the only other one remaining stand there for a few seconds. A moral victory. When Dave’s timing us on burpees and Russian kettle-bells, he never shouts. His voice is loud above the heavy metal blasting from the speakers, but he’s not screaming. You got this, he says. 15 more seconds, he says. You can do this, reach in. Last Thursday, when he did that, even though I was whipped, I managed a few more reps. Felt it all day Friday, but it felt good too.
I want to wait this out, but I don’t. I want to be here when he shows up, forgive him for being, despite a 400 pound bench press, only human. But I want to go home, have a Saturday, do nothing. My wife’s working, won’t be home until 5, so I mean: really do nothing.
I take a deep breath, look the other fella in the eye. “Monday, I guess.” He just smiles, nods, turns and walks to his car.
I decide to compromise. I ran here, so I’ll run back home too. I’m hoping Dave doesn’t have a hang over. But just in case, I’ll commiserate. I stop at the 7-11 on my way, grab a bag of onion potato chips and two Cokes. I plop in front of the TV, and before too long I’m sugar-and-grease queasy. A different kind of work out
Suicide is Painless, My Ass
I made a mistake, and decided to join a Crossfit Gym. I believe “mistake” is the proper nomenclature, since people who are already fit don’t need to torture themselves further, and people who are not already fit would do better to take a cyanide pill.
But I did it, perhaps due to some sort of mid-life crisis thing. I’m 43. I don’t know if I’m old enough to have a mid-life crisis yet, but then, I was always an over achiever. I don’t much care for sports cars, I find people younger than my wife dull to speak to and the only ones who are better looking are artifacts of expert Photoshopping skills. Therefore I’m left, in this crisis, with reshaping my body. Hey, Play-Do’s easy to shape, and my body looks like it fell out of a Play-Do can, so this is the right thing to do, right?
So I did what any red-blooded American man with a beer belly and 2004 Kia Spectra would do: I got a Groupon. 15 classes for 40 dollars. What a bargain, right? That’s, what, less than 3 dollars per class? No. It’s 20 dollars per class because even though I am going to go back, it’s only so I can revenge-die on my instructor.
I admit I had some masochistic fantasies before I showed up. I imagined a 28 year-old blonde named Cynthia Killstrong in tight yoga pants and wrist-wraps shouting at me and a dozen other flabbies:
PICK UP THAT BARBELL!
PUT IT BACK DOWN!
PICK UP THAT BARBELL I SAID!
I SAID PUT IT BACK DOWN!
WHY IS THAT BARBELL ON THE FLOOR?
I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO PUT IT BACK DOWN!
I’m sure you can see the appeal, but it wasn’t like that at all.
First of all, there was a dog, a cute little thing, hanging out in the doorway, basking in the sun, Only later did I realize what that look on her face was saying, “Too bad you’ve got opposable thumbs. Those medicine balls aren’t going to pick up themselves. Sucker”
And the guy who runs the place, Dave, seemed like a decent guy. He took my Groupon without a second glance, handed me an iPad and had me sign a waiver. I’m not sure, but I think the fine print said something about Dave no being responsible for exploding lung syndrome, sudden heart failure, or spontaneous combustion.
But my point is, walking in, that was easy. And the people there were nice. And encouraging. You know what I’m saying? I was all so very seductive, which is the very definition of evil.
Actually, I think I can sum the whole experience up like this: the gym is in the gutted remains of an old DMV building. I am not making that up. I used to go there when I was feeling good about myself and needed to be brought back down to earth, as well as new tags for my Kia. Now it’s just a hollow shell. But still filled with pain.
We did some warm-up things, the usual low-impact exercises, like walking back and forth while kicking our legs above our heads. Apparently, what we were warming up was the nerve endings in our spines, to make us feel the pain better. We did some “grapevines,” which I did in an aerobics class once, so that triggered some nice, comforting PTSD. Then we grabbed barbells, balanced them on our shoulders, and did some squats.
Listen to me very closely: all those pictures you see of people doing squats with actual weights on their barbells? Photoshop. Has to be.
After our “warm-up,” Dave explained the Crossfit philosophy. We were going to do some exercises, and then weren’t going to do them again for months. We didn’t want our bodies to get used to any one set of movements, you see. By continuing to shock our systems every time we came to the gym, we were guaranteed to be in the maximum amount of pain every single day.
And then we did the “workout of the day,” which that day was “Wallballs and Burpees.” I know what you’re thinking—wasn’t that the name of a discontinued kids TV program from the 70s? No. Actually, it’s the name of the two devil-beasts Satan keeps next to him at all times. I think.
Burpees: crouch down, throw your legs back, do a push up, bring your legs back in, jump up in the air clap your hands. Sounds easy, right? I would laugh right now if I wasn’t hopped up on so many painkillers that the FBI has started a file on me just in case it has something to do with local Meth sales. I’m not sure what the hand clap is for. A sharp sound to reassure others you’re not dead, yet, maybe.
Wallballs: take a medicine ball (medicine in the sense that theses balls will cure you of that certain ailment called “not feeling extremely awful”) throw it up about eight feet against a wall, catch and drop down into a crouch, stand up and throw again. (I was careful of my wording there. I did not say “throw UP again” cause that’s a given.)
21 of each, then 15, then 9. It took me 8 minutes and 22 seconds. This is good, because now I know how it takes to die of combined heart lung and soul failure.
But here’s the worst part. There I am, trying to pull my intestines back into my mouth from where they had tried to escape my body. My skin all blotchy red from simultaneous oxygen deprivation and overload. My vision down to pinpricks. And then Dave walked over to me, with his dog by his side. And he gave me a fist bump. And he said nice job. And he said, “See you on Monday?”
And I said yes.
5th of May, and Me No Burrito
fiction by Jason Edwards
Just a walk in the park. Not a metaphor. High cholesterol. I’m 53. Too young to die; too old to start something new. Still. Wife likes the time to herself. At least it’s a nice day. Stupid sodium.
Trash on the path. Piece of cardboard. And this is supposed to be the nice part of town. My doctor says “When I walk, I pick up trash. Stretches the back. Sitting is the new smoking.” Fine. My good deed. Earn an extra helping of couscous. What the hell is couscous.
“Anything helps.” That’s what the cardboard says. One of those homeless signs. They stand by the highway. A good reason to turn up the radio. But the nearest off ramp’s two miles from here. Like I said, the nice part of town.
And what’s that smell. That’s marker smell. This sign is fresh. But why is it here. Somebody wrote this only an hour ago. I’m like CSI right now with my deductions skills.
Maybe he sleeps in the park. And he makes a sign. And he walks to the highway. And then what. Does he buy a frozen burrito from the 7-11? One of those sodium bombs? Does he have high cholesterol?
Is he 53 like me? Is he too old to die, too young for hospice? My kid, he’s 23, he says, when you’re old enough to know you’re going to be dead someday, the rest of life is chasing distraction. Existential discomfort. Everything else is hospice.
I could go to 7-11. I could buy a burrito. I could find this guy. I could give it to him. Cinco de Mayo, I could say. That’s a good walk, four miles. Earn me more than couscous. Seriously, what the hell is it.
But he doesn’t have his sign. So how can he be at the highway. I’ll never find him.
There’s a trash can. Next to a park bench. I could leave the sign for him. But what if some other old geezer who doesn’t watch CSI finds it.
I guess the park is a little cleaner now. Still the nice part of town. I’ll sit on the new bench. If sitting is the new smoking, it’s time for a smoke break. More hospice. My kid’s kind of an asshole.
Denver Bumblebee (Photo of the Day)
