Chapter Three

Ben sat at the polished wooden bar in the middle of the empty restaurant, drinking a glass of iced tea. Next to him sat Reggie, an enormously fat man with a pink, chubby face. Reggie ran his sausage-link fingers left-to-right over Ben’s resume.

“Do you have any experience as a waiter?”

“I don’t want to be a waiter. I want to wash dishes.”

Reggie looked up at him and narrowed his eyebrows.

“Are you serious?”

Ben nodded.

“Why do you want to wash dishes? You can make more money as a waiter.”

“It’s not about the money. I want to feel what it’s like to work at the very bottom. I want to feel the sweat on my brow and the whip on my back.”

“Actually I treat everyone here pretty well.”

Ben nodded. His throat was very dry and his tongue felt swollen. When he got nervous, he got thirsty. He tried to take a sip through the straw but there was no iced tea left, only ice. It made the slurping sound of air being sucked through a cluster of ice cubes. Now he wouldn’t get the job. Reggie would think he was rude for making that noise.

On top of that, he drank it too fast: the whole glass in less than a minute. He should have paced himself. Reggie probably thought he was dehydrated from a long night of drinking—that he was an alcoholic in need of an intervention. He’d think Ben would always be showing up to work late or taking breaks to get a glass of iced tea, that the dishes would never get washed.

“Do you want some more?” Reggie asked pleasantly.

“No thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So you want to wash dishes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any experience washing dishes?”

“I did chores.”

Reggie glanced at the resume.

“It’s not on here.”

Ben didn’t think to put that on his resume. His parents wouldn’t have given him a good recommendation anyway.

“Are you allergic to any kind of soap?” Reggie asked.

“No.”

Reggie sighed. “Well, it’s against my better judgment, but I’ll give you a shot. I’ll hire you on a trial basis.”

“You won’t regret it.”

Ben pressed his lips together to conceal his giddiness. He was finally a member of the working class. Everything was going according to plan.

Reggie leaned back and his chair creaked.

“Do you have any questions, Ben?”

“What are the benefits?”

“Five dollars an hour.”

“Do you offer a retirement plan?”

“No. Were you planning to make a career of this?”

“How about health insurance?”

“No.”

“How many weeks of paid vacation do I get?”

“None.”

“Are the dishwashers unionized?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“There’s no union?”

“No.”

Ben grinned. There would be a union soon enough. He would unionize the dishwashers
and then lead a strike. They would demand better working conditions, better hours, overtime, and to be treated like decent human beings.

The dishes would go unwashed until all the demands were met. They would just stack up in the sink, mold growing and fruit flies buzzing around, like the sink of an alcoholic who got drunk every night and showed up to work dehydrated.

“Okay,” Reggie said. “Let’s get you a hairnet.”



Tyrone was a skinny black man with tightly braided hair. His purple shirt was unbuttoned half the way down revealing a thick patch of chest hair. Ben thought Tyrone might have put gel in his chest hair, but he didn’t say anything.

They were waiting for an elevator in a lobby filled with dusty artificial plants and cloudy mirrors. The tart tang of rancid garbage hung in the air. Ben inhaled with great vigor, like he was smelling the fresh morning air.

“So this is where the working people live,” Ben mused aloud.

“Naw man,” Tyrone said. “Deez people don’ work.”

“Oh.” Ben was disappointed. “But they’re downtrodden, right?”

“Oh yeah, dey way downtrodden.” Tyrone looked at him. “You gotta job?”

“I’m a dishwasher.”

“Dey got machines can do dat now”

“Well, I’m really a poet.”

“Dat’s good, cause you be needin somefin to do when de machine take yo job.”

Ben nodded. Poetry was his fallback option now. Just in case he didn’t make it big in dishwashing.

The door opened and they pressed into the tight elevator. Tyrone pushed the button for the seventh floor. As the elevator went up, Ben could hear the cable squealing and was sure that it would snap.

“Can I axe you a question?” Tyrone said.

“Okay.”

“What country is you from. I notice you gots a accent.”

Tyrone was right. Ben was from another country: the suburbs. But Ben didn’t want to tell him that. It might hurt Tyrone’s feelings, and then Tyrone would hurt him. So Ben just said, “I’m from England.”

Tyrone nodded. “I shoulda know’d it.”

The elevator door opened. Tyrone led the way down a narrow, poorly lit corridor.
Ben was worried. What would happen when Tyrone did a credit check on him? It would become painfully clear that he wasn’t British.

“I’m actually American. I just lived in England, that’s why I have the accent. My parents sent me to boarding school over there.”

“Like Harry Potter.”

“Yeah.”

Tyrone stopped walking. “Here’s de crib.”

“The what?”

“De crib.” Tyrone took a ring of keys out of his pocket. “De apartment.”

“Ah, yes,” Ben said, comprehending. “The flat.”

Tyrone unlocked the door and let it swing open. A bare mattress lay in one corner. A television with aluminum foil on its antenna sat in the center of the room. The pale orange carpet was stained with cigarette burns and several cigarette butts were scattered about. A single bare light bulb hung from the low ceiling.

Ben walked to the window and stared out at the crumbly brick wall, an appropriate metaphor for the life of the working class. The apartment was perfect, the kind of place a workingman would come home to after a hard day of work, get drunk, and beat his wife. A palpable downtroddenness hovered in the air and Ben felt his creative juices begin to flow. Now surely the muse of the downtrodden would take notice of him.

Tyrone patted the top of the television.

“Gets all de channels.”

“Ah, the telly. I don’t watch it. I’m a poet.”

Tyrone had left the door open. A large woman now stood in the doorway. “Tyrone, why you ain’t fix my toilet?” She saw Ben and frowned. “Who dat white boy?”

“He ain’t white,” Tyrone said. “He British.”

The woman looked back at Ben and smiled hospitably. “Welcome to America.”

“Thank you,” Ben said.

Now he would see the real America, and be its poet.



Juan seemed to enjoy his job washing dishes. He was always grinning and singing along to the Latin music playing on the radio station. Sometimes he would playfully spray Ben with the hose and then giggle hysterically.

Despite this apparent cheerfulness, Ben thought that Juan was disgruntled. This was because Juan always spit on the food.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately for the diner) he was only spitting on the leftover food, so the spit never reached the customer. He immediately washed the plate after spitting on it.

Ben thought this was a good metaphor for the struggle of the working class and their misdirected anger. He used this metaphor in a poem.

When he read the poem to Juan, hoping this would lead to a dishwashers’ union, Juan stood there, politely listening and playing with the nozzle on the hose. There was extra pressure on Ben to read well; the hose was the equivalent of rotten tomatoes that would be thrown at him if the audience wasn’t satisfied. Ben finished reading, folded up the poem, and put it back in his pocket. Juan just stared back at him blankly. The poem hadn’t had much effect—probably because Juan didn’t speak English. He hadn’t understood a word.

He just soaked Ben with the hose and giggled. It never got less funny to him.



One night after work, Ben sat alone on the floor of his apartment. His heater didn’t work, so he was bundled up in several sweaters, his hat, and scarf. He hunched over a notebook, trying to compose a poem. Nothing. His muse was silent.

The phone rang. Maybe it was his muse.

He rolled over and picked it up.

“Hello.”

“So, what are you doing these days?”

It was his older brother Philip’s voice.

“I have a job. I’m a dishwasher.”

“I didn’t think they gave those jobs to Americans. They’ll take your citizenship away
now.”

“They can’t do that.”

“That’s what they said in Germany.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you coming home for Christmas?”

“Why? I’m just gonna get coal in my stocking.”

“Christmas isn’t about the presents.”

“Will they let me eat from the Christmas ham?”

“Christmas isn’t about food.”

“So I can have ham?”

“One slice.”

“I think I can learn the true meaning of Christmas without being there.”

“Mom wants you there.”

“Will there even be a Christmas tree or is it just another intervention.”

There was a short pause. This confirmed Ben’s suspicions.

“Oh my God! It is another intervention, isn’t it?”

“Act surprised,” Philip said. “And don’t tell them I told you.”

“You’re acting like this is a surprise party.”

They’d all jump from behind the Christmas tree and yell, “Surprise!” Pat Henderson, the intervention counselor would be wearing a Santa Claus hat and tell him he was addicted to dishwashing.


February 18, 2007

Chapter Two

Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, Ben rolled out of bed, put on his robe, and walked down to the kitchen. His parents were already there.

Elizabeth sat at the table, grinding coffee beans with a mortar and pestle. This way took longer but she thought it made the coffee taste better. Max sat next to her, hunched over a cutting board, chopping up turkey.

“Want some of this omelet?” he asked Ben.

“Sure.”

“Well, you’re not getting any. If you’re gonna waste my money and drop out of college, you don’t get any Thanksgiving leftovers.”

Ben looked over to Elizabeth. Maybe she would use her veto powers like she had yesterday.

“Your father’s right. It’s not a holiday anymore.”

“What am I supposed to eat?”

Max looked up at him. “You don’t need food. You’re a starving artist.”

“There’s peanut butter and Jelly,” Elizabeth said. “Make yourself a sandwich.”

Ben got out the peanut butter and jelly and threw a couple pieces of white bread on a plate. He sat down at the table and started slapping peanut butter on the bread.

Elizabeth continued grinding the coffee beans. Max looked at the turkey he had sliced, decided the pieces weren’t small enough, and started cutting them into smaller pieces.

“I’m giving you a tooth cleaning today,” Max said.

“It hasn’t been six months yet.”

“Who knows when you’ll get into a dentist’s office again? You’ll be so busy in the coal mine, you won’t have time to get your teeth cleaned.”

Ben got the awful image in his head of Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier performing unnecessary root canals on Dustin Hoffman without anesthetic. Is it safe?

“Will you use Novocain?”

Max laughed wryly. “You’re the one who wanted to be a poet. You have to experience great pain to be a great artist.”



The weather was unusually mild for the day after Thanksgiving, so Ben spent the morning in the park, sitting under a tree, writing a poem about poetry. Very Post-Modern.

When it was time for his dental appointment, he walked over to his father’s dental clinic. The door was unlocked and Ben walked into the reception area. The receptionist wasn’t there. She had the day off. Max never saw patients on the day after Thanksgiving.

Ben walked down the hallway to the office. He could smell the faint odor of drilled teeth.

He stepped into the office and was surprised to see his whole family sitting there. Philip sat next to the open window. Next to him, Logan fidgeted with a magazine. Max and Elizabeth sat on the sofa. A man Ben didn’t recognize sat in a folding chair. He had a weathered face with thin lips and wore a colorful wool sweater.

Ben looked at Logan and Philip. They avoided his gaze.

“You’re getting your teeth cleaned too?”

Philip stared out the window. Logan set the magazine down and stared at its cover. Oprah Magazine. Oprah was on the cover.

Max cleared his throat. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the reclining patient’s chair, covered in old plastic.

Ben walked over to it and sat down.

The man Ben didn’t recognize stood up, walked over to him, and spoke in a gravelly voice.

“Ben, you’re not getting your teeth cleaned today. We just told you that to get you here.”

Ben drew in an angry breath. He might have known Max couldn’t just give him a straight tooth cleaning.

“Ben, this is an intervention,” the man said.

Ben blinked.

“For who?”

“For you.”

Ben sighed and slowly shook his head. “I don’t do drugs and I’m not an alcoholic.”

“You’re a poetry addict.”

“Just because I write poetry doesn’t mean I’m on drugs.”

“You’re addicted to poetry. It’s taken over your life. It’s making you drop out of school.” The man grabbed his folding chair, turned it around, and sat on it backwards, with his legs straddling the backrest. He leaned toward Ben, staring intensely. “My name is Pat Henderson. I’m an intervention counselor. Your parents asked me to be here today to help you through this. I specialize in interventions for people addicted to poetry.”

Ben sat upright. “I’m not addicted.”

“You don’t need to feel ashamed. There’s no stigma to it. I used to be a poetryholic myself.”

“You were a poetryholic?”

“You looked surprised, but it’s true. I started off with those little refrigerator magnets with the words on them, composing little poems when I went to get the milk. Then I got into haikus. Before long I only spoke in iambic pentameter, in rhyming couplets. It cost me my wife, my kids, my job, my self-respect. Everything.”

“I’m not a poetryholic,” Ben said firmly.

“You’ve been able to fool a lot of people with your free verse style, not rhyming or having a strict meter. That’s what addicts do. They’re charming. But you can’t fool me. I’m a fellow addict. I know all your tricks. It doesn’t have to rhyme to be poetry.”

Ben threw a victorious look at Max. “I told you it didn’t have to rhyme.”

“I love you,” Max said, his voice shaking. “And I don’t agree with what you’re doing. I’m not gonna let you throw your life away.”

“I don’t like it when you floss at the dinner table but I’m not holding an intervention over it.”

“Ben,” Pat said. “Your family’s going to tell you how your poetry has hurt them. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen.”

“I haven’t hurt them.” He turned to Philip. “Have I hurt you with my poetry?”

Philip returned his stare with wounded eyes.

“We lost the Turkey Bowl because of your poetry.”

“We didn’t lose. We won.”

“Well we don’t have the trophy.”

“You’ll never find it,” Max cackled gleefully. “It’s hidden in the last place you’d ever suspect.”

“Why don’t you just stay in school?” Elizabeth shouted out, her voice like a pencil snapping. “You can volunteer at a homeless shelter part-time if you want to help the oppressed. You can still write poetry.”

“No.” Pat shook his head. “He can never write another poem. Addiction is for life. It’s like syphilis. It never really goes away. I’ve been clean for twelve years and I still go to PA meetings.”

PA? Ben wondered.

“The Palestinian Authority?” he asked. Maybe this was how terrorists recruited now.

Pat shook his head. “Poets Anonymous. It’s a twelve step program.”

Ben imagined what a Poets anonymous group would be like. Recovering poets sitting in a circle of folding chairs, drinking bad coffee from Styrofoam cups, meeting in a church basement. Actually, a church might not like the PA thing; they wouldn’t want the Palestinian Authority in their basement. The meeting would be in the basement of a mosque. The sound of Muslim prayers would be heard coming from overhead. Ben would stand up and say, “My name is Ben and I’m a poetryholic.”

“Hi Ben!” they would all say in unison.

“It’s been one month since my last poem,” he would say, like he had poet’s block.

Ben didn’t like this at all, not one bit. He jumped up and pointed his finger in Pat’s face.

“You’re the Taliban! You’re trying to ban poetry!”

For some reason, when Ben got really angry, he always thought about Islam.

“Ben, we can help you. I work at a treatment center for people like you.”

Ben looked at his parents.

“You’re sending me to boot camp?”

“It’s not boot camp” Pat interjected. “It’s a rehabilitation center. We already have a spot reserved for you.”

“You’re sending me to poetry rehab?”

“You’ll like it, Ben. It’s out in the woods, rustic and peaceful.”

Ben considered. It would probably be just like camp. He wondered what the other campers would be like and why they (or anyone for that matter) would go to a poetry rehab. Maybe a court ordered them to go there. It sounded like something Judge Judy would do.

It would be a good place to get away from everything, work on his poetry. Peaceful and quiet, out in the woods. But then again, he didn’t want to be the kind of poet who wrote about flowers blooming and leaves falling from trees; the kind of poetry his father would probably like if his father liked poetry. He wanted to write about dirt and grit and grime. There might be dirt out in the woods, but Ben didn’t think he would find much grit and grime there. Besides, they’d probably be watching him to make sure he didn’t write poetry. Not the most creative atmosphere.

"There’s a room ready for you at the center,” Pat said. “You have to leave right now.”

“I still have a month left of school.”

“So what?” Max shouted. “You were dropping out anyway. What do you care?”

“I packed a bag for you.” Elizabeth pulled out an old beaten up suitcase from behind the couch she sat on. “Everything you need is in it. All your clothes and spare contact lenses.”

Blood pulsed to Ben’s forehead. She had been digging through his underwear drawer while he was out in the park writing poetry.

“I didn’t put in any socks,” she said. “You won’t need them. They have slippers for you to wear at the hospital.”

Ben walked over, gripped the handle of the suitcase, and looked in his mother’s eyes.

“I’m not giving up poetry.”

He picked up the suitcase, turned around, and walked to the door.

“Bye,” he said, not looking back.

“Ben, don’t go,” Pat shouted. “Do you really want to see what it looks like when a poetry addict hits rock bottom?”

That stopped Ben in the doorway. He remembered the unwashed homeless man who always stood on the corner by Burger King. What was it he was always mumbling to himself? Was it poetry?

Ben didn’t care. If he was an addict, then so be it. If he was going down, he would go down hard. He would be the poetic equivalent of Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. “I came here to poem myself to death.” That would be his mantra.

He walked out the door. He was a poet now, and didn’t need to be around such little-minded people.


February 11, 2007

Chapter One

Ben dropped the bombshell on Thanksgiving at lunch. He was sitting at the living room table with his parents and two brothers. The half-eaten bird rested in the middle of the table, emitting it’s roasted scent. They were just about finished eating and Ben was gnawing on a turkey drumstick. His father Max eyed him suspiciously.

“You never used to like dark meat.”

“White meat’s too dry.”

“Your mother’s sitting right here.”

“It’s all right,” Elizabeth said.

“I didn’t mean your turkey,” Ben explained. “I just meant turkey in general.”

“It never used to be too dry for you,” Max said.

“People change,” Elizabeth said. “Taste buds change. Philip used to like meat. Then he found his true love. Tofu.”

She giggled.

Ben’s older brother, Philip, had become a vegetarian last year. When Philip visited home, he always offered to walk the beagle, Snuggles, but Elizabeth wouldn’t let him. She was afraid he would try to set Snuggles free. Elizabeth considered vegetarianism to be an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia. She had urged Philip to see a psychiatrist but he refused.

Philip spooned up a big lump of tofu that was artificially turkey-flavored. “Laugh now,” he said. “But when you’re all groggy and incapacitated from eating turkey, I’ll take your wallets.”

Ben’s younger brother Logan was already past groggy and incapacitated. His head lay next to his plate, his fair hair fluttering onto the plate and being stained by a mixture of cranberry sauce and stuffing. He snored lightly.

Max shook his head and looked at Ben. “I hope you don’t follow in Philip’s footsteps.”

Ben swallowed and cleared his throat. “I’ve decided to be a poet,” he announced.

Ben was a Freshman at the University of Illinois and hadn’t yet decided what to major in.

Max nodded. “You’ll need something to fall back on. You should get a teaching certificate.”

“I’m not getting a teaching certificate.”

“You can’t make a living writing poetry.”

“I’m not going to spend of my life doing something I hate.”

“Why not? Everyone hates his job. That’s why it’s called a job. You think I like being a dentist? We have the highest suicide rate of any profession.”

Ben suppressed a groan. Max was always bragging about the prolific suicide rate of dentists.

“I’m not paying for you to write poetry,” Max said.

“You don’t have to. I didn’t say I was majoring in poetry. I said I’m going to be a poet. I’m quitting school. After this semester, I’m finished.”

There was silence and the silence caused Logan to stir. “Turn off the television,” he mumbled. Then he slumbered and started to snore again.

“You shouldn’t drop out,” Max said. “Your poetry will be much better if you study poetry while writing it.”

“You said you weren’t going to pay for it.”

“You should listen to what I mean, not what I say. You’re staying in school.”

“I’m still dropping out.” Ben set down the drumstick and wiped his mouth. “I need to feel the plight of the working man in my bones so I can align my creative drive with the downtrodden.”

“They’ve got enough problems without you writing them poetry. They don’t need the boy who doesn’t floss as their poet laureate.”

Whenever Max was angry with Ben he called him The Boy Who Doesn’t Floss.

“I don’t want to be a poet for the bourgeoisie.”

“I don’t send you to college to learn words like that.”

“There’s so many people who have to work backbreaking hours in factories for little money. How can I lift them up if I’m sitting in an ivory tower? College is just training me to be an enemy of the working man.”

“Get your college degree first. The steel mill will still be there after you graduate. Besides, I read that poem you gave me. It didn’t even rhyme.”

“They don’t have to rhyme. That’s so old fashioned. There’s no rules to poetry anymore.”

“I can see why you like it so much then. You don’t want to follow the rules. You don’t want to go to college. You don’t want to rhyme your poems. You never follow the rules—”

“Who wants dessert?” Elizabeth asked. “Who wants pumpkin pie?”

“Do you still like pumpkin pie?” Max asked. “Or have your taste buds changed?”

“Yes. I still like pumpkin pie.”

“Well that’s too bad, cause you’re not getting any.”

Logan looked up and rubbed his eyes.

Elizabeth shook her head. “Max, no—“

“Yes. This is still my house and I say he’s not getting any pumpkin pie. If he’s going to drop out of school to scribble limericks on the bathroom walls of working class bars, he can eat someone else’s pumpkin pie.”

“It’s my pumpkin pie too,” Elizabeth said.

“Paid for with my money,” Max said.

Elizabeth lifted up her chin. “I baked it.”

Max shook his head. “You thawed it.”

Elizabeth’s hand gripped the white tablecloth and the muscles in her forearm tightened. The only sound was Snuggles’s paws faintly scratching on the wooden bathroom door. They had locked her in there so she couldn’t get her snout in the turkey.

“Is there gonna be a food fight?” Logan asked.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and spoke with forced calmness.

“This is a holiday. Problems can wait until the holiday is over. This is the time for family to be together, a time to be thankful for what we have. I’m going to go get the pie now and we’re going to eat it. All of us.”

She turned and strode into the kitchen.

Max was silent. He just slowly shook his head. Philip picked at his teeth and licked his fingers. Logan stretched out his arms and let out a big yawn.

“You’re mother’s right,” Max said. “Holiday traditions come first. I’m not going to let you ruin Thanksgiving.”

Max leaned back, pleasantly groaned, rubbed his sizable stomach, and unbuckled his belt.

“Are you going to beat him?” Logan asked.

Max glared at Logan.

“I’m changing the notches! I ate a lot of stuffing.” He unbuttoned the top button of his pants. “I’m not a thirty-six waist anymore.”

Then Max reached into his pocket and took out a well-used piece of green dental floss.

“Dad, please don’t do that here,” Ben said.

“Why? We’re done eating.” Max started to floss between his teeth.

Ben put a protective hand over his water glass.

“We don’t want little bits of floss gunk flying across the table and hitting us.”

Max sighed and put the floss back in his pocket. “Don’t come to me if you get a cavity.”

“I won’t.

“And don’t think it won’t happen. With all those candies you munch. You’ve always had a sweet tooth, boy who doesn’t floss. A sweet tooth for trouble.”

They ate their pumpkin pie and rested for about an hour. Then it was time for another family tradition, the Turkey Bowl, the annual two-on-two game of touch football.

They groggily made their way out to the front yard. There was a chill in the air so they all had on their earmuffs.

Elizabeth stood on the sidelines waving blue and white pompoms. She was the cheerleader for both teams. Next to her, on a lawn chair, was the bronzed statue of a turkey quarterback getting ready to throw a pass. The winning team got to keep it for a year. Last year, Ben and Philip’s team had won and the trophy spent the year on the shelf of Philip’s apartment.

Logan yawned, still groggy from the turkey. Max stood on one foot like a flamingo and pulled his lifted ankle up, stretching his leg. Philip and Ben were in the huddle. They had their arms on each other’s shoulders and their heads pressed close together.

“Why are you dropping out of college really?” Philip asked. “Are you flunking?”

“I’m not flunking. I’ve got straight A’s.”

“You shouldn’t try doing poetry around poor people. They’ll beat you up. They don’t like poetry and they hate poets.”

“That’s just a stereotype.”

“Yeah, well there’s a reason for stereotypes. Millions of years of evolution and we still have stereotypes. That means stereotypes are worth something.”

“No they aren’t.”

“What are you huddling for?” Max shouted at them. “It’s the kickoff. You don’t need a huddle.”

“Maybe they’re doing an onside kick,” Logan said.

“Why would they do an onside kick? It’s the first play of the game.”

“Exactly. We’d never see it coming.”

Max rubbed his whiskers like he was deeply pondering this and then slunk up closer to the line of scrimmage.

Philip turned towards him. “Don’t try to listen in.”

“Hurry up,” Max said. “There’s gonna be a delay of game penalty.”

“I’ll give you a penalty.” Philip turned back to Ben. “Why don’t you get a job washing dishes at the school cafeteria? They’re mostly ex-cons but I think they’d take you. You don’t get more downtrodden than that.”

Max pulled a whistle out of the pocket of his sweatpants and blew it. “I’m calling a penalty!”

The huddle broke up.

“Where did you get a whistle?” Ben yelled.

“You don’t follow the rules!” Max shouted. “You don’t want to go to college, your poems don’t rhyme, and you’re delaying the game! You can’t even follow football rules!” He blew the whistle again. “You forfeit! Forfeit! The winners are Logan and Dad!”

“Who made you the referee?” Ben shouted.

Max ran over to the Turkey Bowl trophy and snatched it up.

“Put that down!” Philip screamed.

“No!”

Max bore his head down and ran. He ran up the porch steps and into the house.

A cold breeze rustled the tree branches above them.

“I guess we’re finished,” Logan said.

“No,” Elizabeth said. “The game must go on.” She threw her blue and white pompoms to the ground, snatched up her plastic Illinois cheerleader’s megaphone, raised it to her mouth, and turned towards the frosty dirt where she grew marigolds in the summertime. “Is there anyone here who can play football?” she asked the imaginary crowd. She lowered the megaphone, turned around, and answered her own question. “I can play football.”

“No you can’t,” Logan said. “You don’t even know the rules.”

“I’ve seen it done enough. I’ve been cheerleading all these years, I think I’ve picked up a little.”

Logan frowned. “Who’s gonna be the cheerleader?” he asked.

“I’ll still do that.”

“For both teams? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

“I’m a professional.”

Logan shrugged. “Let’s play.”

They started up the game. Philip kicked off to Logan and Elizabeth. Ben looked towards the house and saw Max peering through the window like a troll peering through the slats on a bridge.

The tradition of the Turkey Bowl continued. It was a Thanksgiving miracle.


February 6, 2007

Blue Eyes

Jae Min wanted blue eyes like his teacher at the English academy, so he stopped eating kim chi. You are what you eat, Jae Min figured, so if he went on the pizza-hamburger-spaghetti diet, he would look like a Hollywood movie star.

“You haven’t even touched the kim chi,” his mother said.

The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast.

“I don’t like kim chi,” Jae Min said.

His mother dropped her stainless steel chopsticks and they clanged on the glass table top.

“Eat.”

“I want to have blue eyes. The kim chi makes my eyes not blue.”

“Food doesn’t make foreigner’s eyes blue.”

“Then what does?”

“Foreigners wear colored contact lenses.”

“Can I get colored contact lenses?”

“Those lenses are only for people with trouble seeing. The foreigners all have bad eyes because they don’t eat kim chi.”

“So if I stop eating kim chi, I will get blue eyes.”

“You’ll get a black eye if you don’t make that kim chi disappear.”

Jae Min picked up a piece of kim chi with his chop sticks and set it in his mouth. He chewed up the crunchy cabbage and could feel the horrible delicious spices soaking into his gums, spreading their healthy nutrients up to his eyes.

Now Jae Min would have to pretend his eyes were bad. Then his mother would let him get contact lenses.



That evening, Jae Min lay on the living room floor under the television set, watching the comedy program Mabbagi. He was deliberately too close to the screen. His mother walked into the room and stood over him.

“Your teacher called. She said you can’t see the board and she had to move you up to the front row.”

Jae Min looked up and nodded. It was sad. Childhood blindness.

His mother glared down at him. “Why were you sitting in the back row to begin with? Only troublemakers sit in the back row, throwing paper airplanes and playing rock, paper, scissors for money. From now on you sit in the front row, whether you can see the board or not.”

Then his mother gave him a long lecture on the virtues of kim chi.



The next day, Jae Min’s mother took him downtown. She sat in the waiting room, reading a women’s health magazine while he went into the optometrist’s office.

The office was small and cramped. The walls were covered with photographs of eyeballs sliced open to show what they looked like on the inside. Also, there were several eye charts, even one in English with a large E on the top line. Jae Min sat on the plastic-covered reclining chair.

Dr. Kim was a fat, jolly-looking man with twinkling eyes and a reddish face.

“Try to read that,” he said, pointing to a Korean eye chart.

“I can use the English chart,” Jae Min said. “I go to the English academy.”

“Go ahead then. Start at the top. Get as far as you can.”

The first letter was an E, but he couldn’t tell Dr. Kim or he wouldn’t get colored contact lenses.

“I don’t know,” Jae Min said.

Dr. Kim nodded. “That first letter is very difficult. English is like Chinese. There are thousands of letters. Our Korean writing system is the best in the world. Very simple. I don’t know why you bother at the English academy.”

Dr. Kim was probably just pretending E was difficult so Jae Min wouldn’t lose face. Jae Min didn’t want the doctor thinking he didn’t know English, that he was just some ignorant farm boy who only spoke Korean. He knew all the letters of the English alphabet, even the hard ones like Z and Q.

“It’s an E,” Jae Min said.

“Very good. Now read the bottom line.”

Jae Min looked at the bottom line. The letters were all clear and sharp.

“I can’t read them,” he said. “They’re all fuzzy.”

Dr. Kim pulled down a large metal contraption from above Jae Min’s head. He flicked a couple buttons, making adjustments to the lenses..

“Look through that.”

Jae Min leaned forward and peered through. He could still make out the big E but the bottom line was now nothing but blurry shapes.

“Read the letters on the bottom line,” Dr. Kim said.

“Yes. I can read them.”

“Go ahead then.”

“I already told you I can. Why do I have to prove it?”

“That’s how we do things.”

“Why? Do you think I would lie?”

“Sometimes you think you know what a letter is and you’re wrong. I like to have you read them.”

“You’re calling me a liar?”

It became clear that Jae Min wouldn’t be able to throw the eye test. This was one test it was impossible to cheat on. He was only able to read the bottom line when there was no prescription on the lenses, when he was just looking through pure, unbent glass.

They finished the eye exam and Dr. Kim brought Jae Min back out into the waiting room. His mother set down her magazine and stood up.

“I have good news,” Dr Kim said. “His vision is perfect. He doesn’t need a prescription.”

“Did you give him laser eye surgery? I didn’t tell you to and I’m not paying for it.”

“I didn’t need to. There was nothing wrong with his eyes to begin with.”

“Don’t think this means you can go back to the back row,” Jae Min’s mother told him. “I want you sitting up in the front. And you take notes. Do everything your teacher says.”



Jae Min went to the PC room. All the other kids there were playing Starcraft or Maple Story or Kart Rider, but he logged onto the internet and found the English eye chart, the one with a big E at the top of it. He then tried his best to ignore the shouts and loud noises around him and to concentrate on memorizing the eye chart.



Jae Min sat with his nose pressed up against the TV screen, squinting as if he was still having difficulty seeing it. His mother walked into the room. Jae Min peeled his face off the TV screen, leaving a face print on it.

“You’re a good boy. Your teacher says you’ve been sitting in the front row.”

“I can’t see,” he whined.

She took him back to Dr. Kim’s office. This time the test was a success: he failed. He would lose a little vision because of the contacts but it would be worth it to have blue Hollywood movie star eyes. Besides, he didn’t need his vision; he had to sit in the front row of the class now anyway.

Dr. Kim brought Jae Min out into the waiting room. Jae Min’s mother set down her magazine and stood up.

“He has a slight prescription,” Dr. Kim said. “You should pick out some frames.”

Dr. Kim led them over to a wall with hundreds of glasses frames. There was a big mirror to see how the glasses looked.

“These are nice,” his mother said, picking up a pair of horn-rim spectacles.

“I want contact lenses.”

“You can’t even keep your room clean. How will you keep contact lenses clean? You’ll
get an eye infection.”

“I’ll clean my room.”

“That’s what you always say. Anyway, you’re too young to have contact lenses.”

“The kids will call me four-eyes.”

“They’ll think you look like Harry Potter. You just need a scar on your head.”

Jae Min was quiet. He was afraid his mother actually would give him a scar on his head. At least if the other kids did call him Harry Potter, it would be an improvement over his current nickname: Smeagol.

He wasn’t going to get colored contact lenses, but at least he could stop himself from getting glasses. He gasped and rubbed his eyes.

“It’s a miracle! I can see!”

“What are you talking about?” his mother said.

“I don’t need glasses anymore. My vision’s better.”

His mother’s jaw dropped in amazement.

“How can a person’s eyesight keep getting better and worse all the time?” she asked.

“He might have a brain tumor,” Dr. Kim said.

Jae Min’s mother gasped and her hand fluttered to her chest.

“I knew it. This is because you didn’t eat kim chi. It stops cancer.”

She started to sob.

Jae Min felt his throat growing thick. He felt dirty and selfish. He had only thought about how he would look, not about how his mother would feel if he got brain cancer and died. Jae Min started to cry too.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffled. “I was cunning. I cheated. I memorized the eye chart when you thought I was playing Star Craft. I wanted blue eyes like a foreigner.”

His mother’s tears stopped instantly and a cold look swept across her face.

“You’re the boy who cried wolf,” she said. “Some day, you really will need glasses and I won’t believe you. Then you’ll just stumble around and bump into things. I should make you get laser eye surgery just to teach you a lesson.”

Jae Min cried harder.

“Well, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll think of a suitable punishment.”


February 3, 2007