Her face wrinkled and sagging looks old though she’s not. Lobby smells like smoke. Hits them immediately; he loves that smell; don’t you love that smell, darling, he says to his wife. Nothing like that smell. Small crowd of people waiting to check in, more like a group. “Damn, this is going to take all night.” The manager and the wrinkled lady punch stuff on computers, staring at screens. They say stuff to the people in front of them. Hockey team staying in one wing. Small little dog behind the counter chilling on the floor. Kind of dog you’d expect to live with wrinkled face. Woman wearing pink lipstick. She smiles when he looks at her dog. She punches the keys. Her voice rasps. The constant sounds of wet tires and wet road, where splashing never ceases, reflect disconsolate eternity, contentment and even resignation. The sounds of motion and finality. The end of time and the beginning, Buddha’s om and war, there’s the splitting of the atom, there’s the hiss before you die, the sound of the road between heaven and hell.

Montgomery Steppes walked into work today innocent. Before he’d taken a seat Boss stood over him in his cubicle. “Take a seat,” the man said.
“What could this be?” wondered Monty. Boss wrung his hands. Appeared nervous. Monty briefcase next to his desk as every day for the last fifteen years. Turned on his computer reflexively. Assumed Boss had a list of new projects, or wanted to discuss money again, or desired to badmouth one of Monty’s colleagues.
“We need to talk.”
“Okay?” and it was a question. “What’s happening?”
“Um, I think it’s a good time for you to leave.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re not performing. You’re not happy here any longer.”
While this might be true, Monty didn’t feel his performance had been lagging. “Oh, come now.”
“It’s true. Every day I look at you. You don’t like it here anymore. You even refused to make that call last week,”
“You mean to Linda at Binder’s Books?”
“Exactly.”
“Um, I told you I’d called her nine times, left voice mails, sent emails, talked to some of her subordinates, organized the transfer. Nothing more I could do. Calling again would have been a waste of time.”
“Still, you refused to do what I’d asked.”
“Well, aren’t you going to give me notice?” Monty’s mind reeling. He’d never been unemployed before; never considered the dole; already see wife’s reaction. She’ll be home at six after a hard day at her own job. He played with his hair. Remembered he had a haircut at five with Sonny. Looked at his watch: nine-thirty in the morning.

Alexander conquered Darius, sacking this town and that, taking a Persia thought to be all of Asia, and his contemporaries believed it was grand. Thus they gave him the title of Great. Timothy Mandarin named his first son after him. Alexander Mandarin a good athlete and he lost his virginity at fifteen to Marsha Marie. Alex was a rare combination of physical talent and avid reader. He read all the books he could barrow and decided early he would either go Ivy League or Stanford, though his father had no mind to pay private school. “I went to State you can go to State.” Alex decided not to argue. He applied to Harvard and Princeton and got in, but Mr. Mandarin said “I’ll be damned if I raised an elitist.” And so Alex went to Penn State, good school anyhow. Marsha Marie went to the University of Maryland and they long-distanced for a moment but we all know how that goes. Marsha fell in love with young man at Annapolis. Alex wasn’t crushed. But he did feel lonely. His roommate flung open the shower curtain and laughed at Alex taking liberties. Though mortally embarrassed, he bore a belief that all men tend the easy need and therefore his roommate was an ass.

My name is Moxy. I am a dog. I live in NYC, where I just learned that life expectancy numbers have climbed above the national average. It pays to live in New York, perhaps, says me. I am a mutt, a mix between a ditzy golden lab and a German Shepherd. I don’t speak German. I’m a relatively big guy, you might think me a shepherd upon first sighting, but for the coloring. I press my snout toward you in order to extend my elements of convincing. I woke up on April 16th in a good mood. The apartment was empty. I had to piss real bad. It was a nice spring day out there, I could tell. I was waiting for my “dog-sitter,” some schmo friend of my “master’s.” I prefer human comrade.

My human comrade’s name is Delmar. He is 32 years-old. His wife is 27. They aren’t home because Delmar visited Washington D.C. and the Vietnam Memorial

Celeste Bridges was a smart girl all the time coming up with bright ideas. Maiden name Marple. She married Whiffly Bridges on a grand day in June. The church was solid and bright and strong. They moved from Davenport, Iowa to San Francisco twenty years ago. And by now she’s used to the game at the mechanics’ shop in the big city. Celeste is certain it’s the same in all the big cities of the country. They had two fine children, Bruce and Molly, whom they’d sent to the best private schools. When Bruce and Molly were in their teens Celeste stumbled upon her bright idea and she became obsessed with fees. It happened slowly, coming on like the movement of a glacier. And then it happened suddenly, like an earthquake. It may have even been during the Earthquake of ’89 that she solidified her idea. It is an American thing, these fees. An exciting ultra capitalist thing. She figured that if the entire world could do it, governments and corporations charging the small little people, then the little people could do it too.

She was further fortified in her vision when folks began having sponsored weddings. Like race cars with all their stickers and decals and logos and basketball player shoes. The coach for Texas Tech, used to be at Indiana she noticed, has a sponsor’s stitching on his famous sweater,

Let us begin this wondrous moment with a black plastic garbage bag. You know the type of black plastic garbage bag. They started in America. Then they spread throughout the western world. And now black plastic garbage bags exist in all the homes and stores and nagging crannies of the entire world. Inside the black plastic garbage bag are some dried, old earth-litter leaves, fallen from last autumn’s trees. We collect them in this country and places them along curbsides, in piles and heaps for young children’s Saturday afternoon jumping enjoyment. And we collect them inside black plastic garbage bags. Hold that image . . . and . . . thank you very much.

Thomas Moog had a doctor’s appointment at eleven in the morning. They were going to check the new growth on his temple and his recurrent fluttering heart. He took the morning off from work. He saw the UPS guy – “E” – running from a storefront, an establishment next to The Tail Lodge. “Is that, um, as in, ah, tail?” Thomas asked E. The UPS driver turned around and stared at the marquee of the rundown Broadway downtown Oakland urban road motel, sign and a tail. Wagging perhaps.