Quirks.... Chapter 3: Footing and Failure

           Alistair watches Ken slumped over at the end of the bar, head resting on the mahogany, eyes focused on the right hand that writes with a life of its own. It was creepy. The rest of Ken looked completely dead, or at least asleep, arm hardly moving. It was just the one hand that never seemed to stop except to flip a page in the notebook.     

Alistair shook his head and went back the group of regulars with their dates who needed another round. He liked his job. It was nice not to answer to some tyrannical boss like Ken did. Just punch in, work as hard as you can, keep everyone smiling, and then walk out at five a.m. with cash in your pocket. He liked Ken, just didn't always understand exactly what was going on. Jenny loved Ken though, and that was that, Ken was family.

            The thought of Jenny always made him look across to the far wall of the dining area and smile. It had been one of her first professional pieces in New York, and all these years later the mural still looked great. Stretching along the entire dining room she had spent two months intricately painting the Irish mountains slowly descending down into the famous farmland complete with sheep. She had really liked painting the sheep. He liked bragging to customers that he had discovered the artist and then name off the other New York City landmarks where you could see her commissions. She was just the little sister he never had. Now she was pregnant, and all Ken could do was get drunk and write. Alistair shook his head and started mixing the drink he knew Ken would want any minute, he just kind of thought that this would stop once they conceived.

            Ken muttered a thank you, sitting up briefly to drink and then head went back down to write.

            “Alistair? Did she call?” The question came out in a barely audible muffled mutter from beneath Ken's sleeve, “I tried. I tried not to wake her.”

            “No. E's sleepin' sound. I'm certin.”

            Ken dotted one last period on the page and thrust the notebook forward, “Read this please? When you have a minute. I need my editor.”

            “Sure ting.”

….

            “I'm a firm believer. In what, I really don't know these days. I believe in something though. I guess it’s this idealization of an idea that just slips past the tip of my tongue and through my fingers. I always here people telling me, “Every thing is 20/20 in retrospect,” but I really couldn't agree less. I find the farther away you get from things the fuzzier they get, the more idealized, the less realistic. I do however agree with the old saying “The grass is always greener on the other side.” Now that seems to fit perfectly with this huge nostalgia craze America is going through right now.

            I know we've had nostalgia shops and things around for as long as most of us remember, but in the last year it's the biggest fad that I have ever seen. It used to just be a handful of people who wanted to go back to the way things were, but now it’s like everyone wants to go back to that time before and even during the Recession. I was a kid during that time of the Bush and Obama reigns over this country, and trust me, few people would have believed me then if I said either president would have his face on a bedazzled faux fur lined purse. Back then I remember Kennedy was considered the gold standard of politicians. Now I bet about half of you reading this will turn to each other and say. “Who's Kennedy?”

That's why I just don't get all this nostalgia shit. My editor want me to play on your desire for times of old, when things were simpler. I just flat out don't know any such place. So instead my reader, I am going to assume you are an intelligent individual and not pander you. Instead I'll tell you what I remember. Maybe that will satisfy your cravings for some bullshit nostalgia.

            I grew up in Hoffter, a tiny rural town out in the mountains of Northern California. There were maybe five thousand people and being the county seat, if anything happened in our neck of the woods, it happened in Hoffter. I really start remembering life outside my family at around age six, in 2002, and everything else I know about that time I read in books. I had never seen a big city and was completely unaware of the world outside our town. I was a typical child.

            Somehow my parents were weathering the Recession fairly well. I never knew we were poor. My father was a Reverend at the local Lutheran Church. My mother stayed at home to take care of me. I like to think I was fairly typical: my favorite toys were mud, sticks and boxes. I never did go much for the video games and such. I preferred to make up my own stories about what things were doing and thinking. I liked to color in my Monsters Inc coloring book and sleep with my Buzz Lightyear stuffed doll. Before I got into first grade I had read all of the picture books in the Public Library. I wasn't quite Matilda, but I did find her a source of relation when I did finally get around to reading that book. Like Matilda though, my only friends were in books. I just never quite fit in those first few years, the girls were too interested in horses and Barbies, which were boring, and the boys played with slugs which were scary. It went on and on like that.

While I rarely interacted well with kids my own age, I found a strange ease with adults. After every Sunday service, while my Dad counted the offering for the deposit, and Mom cleaned up the communion, I would follow all the other adults downstairs into the fellowship hall for coffee and cookies. I loved weaving in and out between the legs of the adults, listening to what they had to say. The strange things they spoke of, even though I couldn’t really follow along, fascinated me. Their words seemed foreign at the time. I would try and sound them out and write them down in my little coloring book. They were badly spelled, but I still can go back home and find those coloring books with words like “terrorist”, “Congress”, “Saddam”, “activists”, “budget”, written in crayon. Sometimes I would pull on a jacket and ask what these words meant. The adults would laugh.

            “Isn't that cute?” I remember Mrs. Crandall saying after I asked what “sniper” meant, pulling my book from my hands, “Let me see what you wrote.”

            Her husband swooped me up in his arms so I could see everyone a little clearer, “That's not the kind of thing you need to worry about.”

            I didn't understand. I wanted to know. If they thought it was important, then I just wanted to know, “Why?”

            He and some of the others laughed. Mr. Franks came up alongside of Mrs. Crandall and read over her shoulder. They looked strangely at one another, like they had tasted something bad, and slightly familiar.

            “Well,” he said, “Just because.”

            My book was passed back to me and I was told to go color. No more questions. My parents weren't around at that moment, so when I persisted I was plunked down in a corner with cookies and milk under Mrs. Frank's watchful eye. I felt I was in trouble as her husband whispered in her ear, but I just colored.

            We talk about how times are so different now, so different that we should be missing the simpler times. My friends debate with me the pros and cons of raising children in a big city or a small town. There is no difference between then and now, big city or small. It’s all dangerous. People act just the same. Yesterday I got my coffee from the street vendor on my block. A small child pointed at the Mayor's poster campaigning for re-election.

            “Mommy,” she said squinting to read the large print, “Are you voting yes, on prop 85? She smiled up at her mother so proud at her accomplishment having read it correctly, “Mayor says you should.”

            The mother was not so proud, “Janice! Don't read those things. It’s not for children.”

            “Why?”

            Mommy scoffed, looking away from her child to took her change and drinks, “Just because.”

….

            Alistair didn't finish until closing time at four, but Ken was still around, chatting with the fellow drunks.

            “Kay,” Alistair said pushing everyone but Ken out the door, “Time ta go. Ken, ya wait for me. We'll catch a cab.”

            Ken tried to smile but it quickly fell, the shine dim in the eyes desperate for sleep and over powering the face, “Did you like it? It's shit isn't it? Goddamn it they're going to fire me for sure. It's utter tripe. I knew it. I just,”

            “Ey!” Alistair said shoving Ken lightly on his way to lock to door behind the last straggling drunks, “Let me get a word in eh?” He dropped the dead bolt, leaving the keys in the lock before turning back to Ken, “It’s not tripe. I liked it. You write like a fooking kid dough.” Alistair tucked the papers with all his edits inside Ken's jacket pocket, “You want me to keep reading you better work on your penmanship. Now stay dere! I gotta give Conner his share of da tips an’ then I'm takin you 'ome.”


          Ken was there when he left to lock up, but then the busboy Conner wanted to talk about learning to bartend and could Alistair maybe give him a private lesson or two? Connor wasn't easily shook off, and by the time Alistair got back upstairs, Ken was gone.

            “Fook.”

Quirks.... Chapter One: Crime and Punishment

          As soon as Ken dropped the deadbolt that morning, it had been clear it going to be one of those days. New York city is hot, sticky and the people are on edge, few like the heat here in the summer and all rushing from one air-conditioned space to the next. Ken saw two fights break out on the way from home in Greenwich Village to the office on the West Side. Ken wasn't normally the type to hang head or to look down the nose, but it was a head-hanging day today. No matter where you go, you feel like the cops pulled you over when you swear you weren't speeding, like the teacher standing behind you during that crucial test, like the group of girls giggling after you just asked one of them out. It was just one of those days. Ken felt that instead of a suit and tie, wearing a noose might have been more appropriate. Jenny had discretely stuck a collapsible fabric box in Ken's bookcase in case of the worst.

      Five stories up Ken was sweating in the hot seat. Editor and chief Leela Rosen sat at her desk, not the familiar warm face that Ken knew, but the pursed lips and rapping red fingernails that everyone secretly feared. She made her reputation not only as an amazing reporter and editor with an uncanny ability to be generous in even the toughest of circumstance, but also with the fact that she could rip your heart out and feed it to you still beating. It just depended on what mood she was in. Somehow she pulled it off in heels and a pencil shirt. They had been partners for two years when Ken first started, and that made the red chair that she pulled out just for serious talks all that more painful to be in.

      “So you know why you’re here,” she said, more stating than questioning, “just because we're friends doesn't mean I can let this pass unchecked.”

      “Yes you can,” Ken said failing an attempt to fake a smile, “I know I'm your favorite.”

      “Ha!” she laughed leaning back in her chair, “Sure you’re my favorite but not because we're so close, you're my favorite because you're a good writer and your keep your nose clean. Nose is dirty now. Filthy in fact.”

      “Okay, so I lost my temper.”

      “No,” she interrupted, “losing your temper is raising your voice to a CEO or slamming your coffee cup down on your desk. You punched Craig! That's more than just a slip of the temperament. That's an utter lapse in judgment.”

      “You're right,” Ken said sighing, head lowering low in genuine shame.

      “I know what he said was cruel, and totally uncalled for, but I'm dealing with that separately. As for you, I don't care for this whole he-said-she-said game you two are playing. I don't care what disgusting thing he said. You are both adults, and if you feel you have some macho thing to prove, then you need to do so outside of this office. Is that clear?”

      “Yes ma'am,” Ken said breathing deep, waiting for her verdict.

      “I should fire you both.”

      “Yes ma'am.”

      “But,” she said leaning back in across the desk relaxing her clenched fists and intertwining them, “And listen to me closely Ken.”

       Ken looked back up at her.

      “I am not going to fire either one of you.”

       Ken’s heart seemed to skip a beat, “What?”

      “You and Craig are two of my best writers, and he may be a cocky bastard, and you may be hot headed, but that doesn't mean you're not good at your jobs. You are both on sabbatical, and if either one of you pulls another stunt like this, then that's it. I can't stop him from pressing charges again. He wanted to and I told him that if you two couldn't drop the matter on my terms, then you both are out on the unemployment line. Do they still have those?”

      “Sadly.”

      “Huh,” She said leaning back slightly again, “Remind me about that after I finish. Anyway, so both of you are no longer picking and choosing what you do around here. All privileges are revoked. You both are now partnered up with research partners. You need to learn some people skills.”

     “I have people skills!”

     “Ken?”

     “Yes ma'am.”

     “Shut up.”

       Ken nodded and for the first time in years tried not to cry, looking down, and stared instead and the sinking red cushion that secured one from any form of squirming. The hot seat held you just as securely as Leela’s no nonsense glare.

     “Until I am satisfied, you are both suspended from your columns and will be doing the more basic news stories. I'm assigning you Edmund. Now I am not putting you both in the doghouse forever. Either one of you can get back into my good graces and get your column back, by helping me out with a new project. The powers that be around here want some more Rockwell, P.C., puff piece stuff in the Family and Entertainment section. I need independent, stand alone pieces that are all about that time our generation grew up in, you know, how life was better twenty or thirty years ago in the beginning of this century, golden Age crap. There seems to be this growing nostalgia in our readership, which is crap but, whatever. If that's the target audience then I have to hit it. I'm assigning this to you, Craig, to all my columnists. Whoever comes up with the best stuff every week gets the spot. Starts next month. If one of you two wants to prove what I think, that you're worth keeping around, then that will help your cases. I can't fire writers that are popular. Well, I can, but that just doesn't make too much sense. The guys upstairs think I might be a little nuts for doing things this way, but I want to give you both a chance.”

      “Thank you.”

      “Just prove me right Ken. Don't make me look stupid. You make me look stupid, and I’ll make you watch the sunset from between your butt cheeks. Now get out. Edmund is waiting for you.”

       She leaned forward extending her hand to pull Ken out of the hot seat, its red leather squeaking loudly at the friction. It had been so long since she had had to use it that Ken looked silly brushing all the lint and dust off that had emerged from the cracks and folds. She felt a little guilty being so tough. She could see Ken's lower lip bleeding slightly. Ken only did that to fight tears. She knew she had saved Ken's job though, so, what must be must be.

      “Oh, and Lee?” Ken said with one shined shoe out the door, “The existence of unemployment lines?”

      “Yes,” she said standing a little taller, remembering that she was the boss, and not just one of Ken's buddies anymore, “That will be Edmund and your first assignment. Two thousand words on the situation of our city's unemployment rate and the options open for those now verses before.”

      “Yes Ma'am.”

      “And Ken. Don't forget about that special column. I know it’s not quite your cup of tea, but it would help your case.”

     “Yes Ma'am.”

      Ken closed the door and tasted just a little more blood. The day wasn't done sucking yet. Edmund was waiting.

     Edmund and Ken had worked together before, and after every assignment Ken felt the need to slam someone's head into a wall. Maybe Lee was right about that people skills thing. Not that Edmund was a bad person, just impossibly dull. Ken liked to be around vibrant, deep people like Jenny. Jenny was an artist who was always saying the strangest most intelligent things, and Edmund collected sweater vests. Jenny sang as she worked, and Edmund squinted. Sadly Edmund was one of the best researchers to be paired with and Ken had to respect the man. At least he wasn't a bigoted, close-minded loud mouth like Craig. There was good riddance to that last partnership. Ken didn't care if you didn't like one group of people or another just don't impose your beliefs on others, especially the people of the group you hated. Edmund may be bland, but with blandness seemed to come an oblivious acceptance. That at least was refreshing.

      “So,” Ken said plopping down in the chair across from Edmund's desk in the maze of cubicles that was their department. At least this chair offered some flexibility and Ken took liberty of that stretching out to full length with feet on Edmund's desk, “Did the Queen Bee tell you what was up?”

      “Yep,” Edmund said pushing his glasses up his nose with his right middle finger and smiling wide, “I am your baby sitter. Don't worry though! It'll be fun.”

       Edmund seemed genuinely excited, and that just made Ken's head shake back and forth with a Kermit lip tuck, “If you say so buddy. Start the basic bullet points of the topic and we can go over them tomorrow? Figure out an outline to make this snooze-fest of a space filler readable?”

      “Sure thing. Why don't you stick around though? I'll only be an hour or so.”

      “Actually, I have to get home. The wife needs me. Big drum roll sounds off today and she wants me there. We finally find out if it all worked or not.”

      They stood up and Ken shook Edmund's hand. This had to work, writing was life, and Ken couldn't give up this place. “Actually, email me your research and I'll just do the first bit of brainstorming and writing from home.”

      “Yeah,” Edmund laughed, “You. Work from home? If I need to find you I know where to call.”

       Ken raised a brow questionably at Edmund but realized there was no malice in his words, just social awkwardness. Anyone else might have been taking a stab at Ken, but with Edmund it was just the obvious trust. That was okay. Edmund would work Ken decided. Saying their goodbyes, Ken headed off for home trying to get prepared for the answer to months of questions.

....

      Ken paced the floors in the living room, the constant rhythmic clacking of heels on the wood floor echoed throughout the apartment, bouncing off the walls drowning out the sound of midday crazed chaos out in the city beyond their little world. It seemed that everything could be summed up in that sound, Ken's heartbeat pounding to its rhythm, the sound and sensation of as one's suit moves across the skin, the little noise that drifted up to their apartment from the street below, even how often Ken felt the need to reach up and squeeze the face's tense flesh.

“Quiet down out there Babe!” came Jenny’s voice from the bathroom, “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“On what exactly? Just relax and release,” Ken said, demonstrating with sweeping hand gestures to no one in particular, “Relax. And release.”

“That’s easy for you to say Sir Paces-A-Lot. Why don’t you relax? Or, try cramming three thousand dollars worth of hopes, dreams, sperm and eggs into your who-ha and see how well you can pee on a stick. It’s a very tiny target.”

Ken headed for the kitchen knowing this just wasn't doable without a drink. So what if it was a bad example? The kid wasn’t here yet, and if a drink was wanted then Ken could damn well have a scotch. Ken took comfort in the fact that if nothing else, some things never disappointed. Sure you could be disappointed in yourself, but scotch, always right on the money.

“Third shelf to the right of the fridge,” came Jenny’s voice along with the sink starting to gush on full blast.

“So you are nervous,” Ken said racing for said shelf, grasping the prize with trembling hands, “You’ve rearranged our whole kitchen.”

“Well, yeah, it’s hard to concentrate without you home sometimes. I couldn’t get any work done. Just put some ice in it okay? At least water it down a bit.”

Ken headed over to the glasses, grabbing two pouring the first tumbler to the brim with the scotch, and started to fill the other with ice from the dispenser on the fridge door, “Sure thing.”

        Ken had been cutting down, but didn’t have patience for that right now, and emptied the first glass while filling up the second over ice, “What Jenny doesn’t know, won’t make her nag me,” Ken said quietly.

Back to pacing, one hand deep in pocket, the other trembling as it brought the glass to mouth. Ken waited trying to filter the sounds of possibly peeing from that of water flowing from the tap, the clinking of the ice the tumbler, and the rustle of the people outside their window too busy to know that right now, a miracle could be happening. 

Ken was going for a refill when the water turned off, but the familiar squeak of the bathroom door did not follow.

“Oh hell,” Ken said filling tumbler with a few more ice cubes, “Maybe she does have a point. This shit makes me too God damn jumpy.”

“I always have a point,” Jenny said, her hands appearing out of nowhere and wrapping around Ken’s waist.

Ken tried not to jump, but couldn’t help it a little, “Damn! You are seriously a ninja. Did you know that?”

Jenny pressed her head into the groove between Ken’s shoulders, “Well I have to keep you on your toes Babe. It’s what you love about me.”

“True,” Ken said, turning around and wrapping Jenny up, squeezing her tight, rocking her just a little bit, “So?”

“So,” she said, her sweet pixie face hidden from Ken’s view, her skin strangely cool through Ken's suit. All Ken could see was the puffy coarse mess of brown-red hair that was never quite tamed, no matter how many conditioners clogged up the shelves of their bathroom claiming to do just that.

“So?” Ken said just a little more emphatically, “So are we waiting on results or are we….?” 

Ken just didn’t know how to finish that sentence, the word felt heavy and taboo, the way swear words had in high school. 

Jenny looked up into Ken's eyes, “Yes. Yes, we're pregnant.”

Ken laughed and lifted Jenny in the air, twirling her around. Bending down to kiss her lips that trembled with a nervous, deliciously happy laughter, Ken wondered what on earth could have been done to have possibly deserved such a horridly wonderful day.

Quirks.... Chapter Two: Dreams and Realities



          Jenny wakes a little after eleven as the deadbolt slides into place, pats the empty space besides her, still slightly warm from where Ken had tossed and turned. Jenny appreciated the effort. Ken had tried, and now Ken was out looking for whatever the hell it was that Ken looked for. Jenny crept through their apartment in the dark, careful not to step on the few creaky spots in the floor. It always made her smile to think of the day she and Ken had been living there a few months, new to New York City and already nose deep in their first mortgage, flat broke, barely making it by, and how happy it had made them to spend the day with a few bottles of two buck chuck pressing their feet on every square inch of their warped wooden floors finding every single troubled spot. Hopping around, tripping over one another in a drunken mapping dance, dashing between the creeks and the counter where they would refill their glasses and mark the spots on the floor-plan. She chuckled in the dark. All that ruckus and chaos in the hopes to avoid making noise in the future. That was what she loved about Ken, it didn't matter how broke they were, it didn't matter how stressed she was, Ken always found a way of making the most normal day seem like a special occasion, Christmas in May without all the presents, but with twice the magic. Ken was her magic... but tonight it was black magic.

          She dialed Compass's number from memory as she looked out the window and down at Riverside Park. Two rings and her anticipation were met with the comfort of a thick Irish accent, “Compass Bar and Grill. This is Alistair. 'Ow can I help you?”

          “Alistair, its Jenny.”

          “Ken coming on over?”

          “Just left.”

          “I'll call you as soon 'E's ear.”

          “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

          “I ever let you down?”

          Jenny smiled weakly, wishing this wasn't even an issue, “Never. Thanks. You know I appreciate it.”

          “Try to get some sleep. 'Kay?”

          “I'll try. See you at the party on Friday?”

          “We'll be there.”

          Placing the phone back in its cradle, Jenny wished she could just do what she used to, drink a few glasses of wine, dance around the creaky places in the floor, and remember only the good times. Instead she laid back in their bed, staring at the ceiling. Ken was always staring at this ceiling, she never knew what exactly at what. All she could see where the beautiful patterns made by the circular sweeps of the plaster being swept on. She danced with the sweeps, following their movements like the forbidden foot holds in the living room, stroking her belly lightly with her finger tips, until finally she drifted off to sleep.

          She dreamed of the first night that she had ever seen Ken. Transported on the wave of hormones and memories, she was swept back into college, passing the over-sized water pipe around the circle of giggling girls, their music blasting out the walls of the dorm room. Not that anyone really would care, not like the creaky floor in her future where they had to know where the bad spots where as to not incur the wrath of their down stairs neighbors, if you made noise on campus no one noticed, because they were making plenty of their own. Friday nights were about partying, unwinding, putting off the studying you should be doing because really, the assignments weren't due until Monday, and she painted so much more organically with a solid buzz. Bong was followed by bottle. It went too quickly, and being the only one slightly sober, Jenny was the one to cross the empty campus in the dark to the liquor store and buy a few more bottles.

          In the dream it seemed so real, the little buzz from the wine, the sedation from the pot, making every breath in the cool California night seem so important. Taking them in slowly, loving the way that if she concentrated she could feel the difference in temperature down into her lungs. She closed her eyes as she walked out of the Residential Community of new modern buildings, knowing her way as long as her bare feet kept hitting smooth pavement and ended in soft, lush new lawn. When she had found the grass of the Quad, she opened her eyes. Spanish Style white buildings that made up the classrooms surrounded the new landscaping. The University used to be a mental institution up until the 1970's, one of California's last state run hospitals, and even though a lot of new buildings had been added like the residency, the modern mammoth of a library and a shopping plaza, the classrooms were still in these old rooms. It was so strange to be listening to a lecture, feeling so trapped when you would rather be anywhere but in the tiny desk/chair combo, to look up and actually see bars on the windows.

          Up and to the left was the path that exited the Quad, led past the library and into the shopping plaza where the liquor store would be open another hour or so, and then off to the right was the path that connected to the older side of the campus where not much remodeling had been done yet. Both paths connected to the main road, which would lead to her destination, eventually. It occurred to Jenny that she had never really explored any of those older buildings. She had only been here a semester, and was just now getting comfortable, meeting new people other than her roommates and immediate classmates... had just started seeing the multiple worlds that existed on this small, young campus. The pot had such a calming effect on her mind, that she decided to go and explore. She had plenty of time, the girls had plenty of pot, and they could wait a little longer for the wine.

          The breeze stared to pick up, as Jenny wandered down the first long hallway, on either side were staff offices, bulletin boards filled with announcements fluttering against their restraints, creating the slightest of whispers in her ears. The pavement under her toes was no longer well kept and clean. Jenny's toes caught on cracks, and grit found their way between her toes, the hallway led to a smaller courtyard with only one other exit. A few of the windows that looked into it had plants on their sills, or knickknacks that made offices feel more like bedrooms then work places. In other windows you could see cobwebs. She went on, the mist in her mind starting to fade just a little, making the shadows deeper, the night air a little thicker those barred windows a tiny more threatening. What had been kept in those rooms? Again she was along the main road, to her right there was the buildings, and out to her left the vastness of nothing, miles and miles of southern California fields, not a light to be seen between her feet and the beginning of the step hills that rose up to start the California mountains. A sickly sweet smell crossed her nostrils on the wind, cilantro and strawberries growing side by side, all fertilized with fresh manure.

          A sharp cry rose up behind her and Jenny's skin jumped off her bones, whipping around to face the dark, an owl flew into from the tree by the road and into the next growing inside the courtyard opening up behind her. She followed it with her eyes until it was out of sight, and then started walking closer, back towards the stark dirty white of the old buildings. Those walls seemed to call to her, she knew it was the high, but it called nonetheless.

          In this courtyard no work had been done. Walking straight ahead, she felt she had been here before, the courtyard looked just like the last, but older, wilder. The only grass under her feet was planted long ago, and it was more coarse thrush anything. Jenny was certain this was a place that no one came. The walls were caked with the dirt that was blown over off of the fields, little plants grew out of the cracks in the walls, their vibrant color leading her eyes up to the window glass broken behind the bars, their paint dull and cracked, more rust than red. The glass beyond them had rows of scratches, like an animal had been trying to escape. Stepping closer, the room beyond it an inky black of utter abandonment, she gazed at that flurried repetition of clawed etchings, “Oh God. What happened here?”

          “Just the usual death and insanity.”

          Jenny had never screamed so loud in her life. If she wasn't sober the second before, the second after the voice she was utterly scared sober as she spun around and dropped to the ground, her back hitting the plaster wall, her finders digging into the wild weeds beneath her.

          In the far side of the rectangular yard, in the darkest of the night's shadows, sitting just like her with knees to chest, back to the wall, was Ken. Hair longer back in those days, but eyes just as bright. Jenny knew for second this was all a memory of a dream and it seemed so strange that Ken should look this way, not dressed in usual suit and shined shoes, but in flannel and jeans, scuffed checkered vans, so young, so instantly different from anyone else Jenny had seen before.

          Just like it had happened though, she watched slightly shaking as Ken rose, dusting the dirt off, and hustled over to her side, offering a hand, “Sorry, I thought you saw me when you walked in here.”

          “You're not a ghost are you?”

          “Haw! Nah, there are ghosts on campus I am sure but I'm not one of them. Just a journalism major.”

          Jenny let Ken help her up, “What on earth are you doing here?”

          “Out for a walk. I like to walk.”

          “At night?” Jenny asked.

          “Mostly. I don't sleep much.”

          “Are you high?”

          “No. You?”

          “I was. Not anymore. Fuck!” She pushed Ken playfully, “You came out of nowhere.”

         “Well, um, sorry,” Ken smiled, “I just don't see people around here that often. Wanna go?”

         “Yea.”

         “Want me to walk you where ever you're going?”

         “Sure. Oh, I'm Jenny. You?”

         “Ken, Kenny, whatever you prefer.”

         “Ken? Really? That's actually your name?”

         “What's wrong with it?”

          Jenny gave Ken the once over, and then laughed, linking arms and started walking back the way she had come. The night did not seem so scary anymore. Ken seemed startled looking at her with thick lashed large eyes, having to hustle for a second to keep up with Jenny's long strides despite their tether, “It just doesn't look like you're a Ken. I could see you as a Kenny, maybe, but I just met you. Now all I know about you is that you have a weird name, and take walks at night in the creepy part of campus. Maybe when I get to know you more it'll suit you.”

          Ken's arm stiffened, and Jenny leaned against it slightly as she directed their movements back to the dorm, wine long forgotten, “Well, I guess it’s more a nickname I just started trying out freshman year. Not like I really got to chose my name before but you know when they call attendance they ask what name you preferred to be called by, and yah. The first semester I was here that just stuck in my craw, I started to think about it, and I don't like my actual name. Sure its my name and all, but I never really liked it. So the second day of class I told the professor to call me Ken, and now everyone does.”

          “How long have you been going here?”

          “It’s um, it’s my third year. You?”

          “I'm a transfer student, I wanted to, you know, try something different. I got my AA at the city college and now this is my second semester.”

          “You like it here?”

          Jenny shrugged, “I do. It is different. I'm from New York, and, well this is just a total culture shock. I'm used to be being surrounded by a couple million people, and here there's like what, maybe a thousand on campus.”

          “Yeah, Not much here. More than where I grew up. My whole school had maybe five hundred students.”

          “Where was that?”

          “Northern California,” Ken said, “Little town out in the middle of nowhere.”

          “Sounds nice.”

          “Its not.”

          “Oh,” Jenny said, right as they got out of the little maze of the new and back to her familiar territory of the Quad, “Well, thanks. You want to come back to my dorm with me. My roomies and I are, or where, smoking and listening to some music on YouTube. Nothing thrilling, but it might be more fun than hanging in the courtyard.”

          Ken looked around, like there might be someone else Jenny was talking to, squinting slightly, “You sure?”

          “Yeah,” she grabbed Ken's hand giving it a little squeeze. She didn't let go either. There was definitely a spark in her stomach when they touched, “I don't know why, but this is the most fun I've had all semester.”

          “Yeah?” Ken looked down at their hands. By the shock on Ken's face jenny was certain she was wrong, hadn't there been some flirting there? But Ken didn't let go, “And you didn't even see any of the ghosts.”

          The shrill cry of the telephone woke Jenny again. Stumbling to the kitchen, she hears the loud joyous sounds of a typical late night bar, “Hello?”

          “Ken just showed up.”

          Jenny looked around, eyes not yet adjusted to the tiny flickers of light around the apartment. The clock on the oven said two in the morning, “Good. Just make sure Ken gets in a taxi when you close up. No more walking.”

          “Ya got it. E'll be 'ome round fourish I bet. Ya know the drill, 'less ya want me ta close early.”

          “No. No. Don't bother.” Jenny wanted it, but knew better, “It just helps to know what's what.”

          “Kay. E's drinkin slow. I'll keep an eye out.”

          “Goodnight Alistair.”

          “Night.”

          Jenny clicked the phone shut and went back to the window, looking out onto the river beyond the trees. It wasn't as cute anymore, Ken's late night walks, as they had been at first. She opened the window to let in the breeze in.

          It felt just as good now as it did then. But her hair was long now, no longer a little pixie college girl cut, and Ken's was shorter. They used to have little parties with her roomies all dying their hair funny colors, and now Ken hardly wore any products other than what was expected to look professional. They had become a couple almost instantly, where official in a month of meeting. Ken went for walks at least once a week even back then. Mostly when stressed. It was every night during finals. The last few years it had gone to only every other week, depending on what was happening at work, and now.... well this was the third time this week. She stroked her belly with her fingertips just lightly enough to give her shivers. Married for five years, dated for three, lived together almost that entire time, and she still didn't know what she had wanted to ask Ken that first night: what was so wrong that you'd walk around like that. Some things you just can't ask people.

          “Well,” she said to no one at all, or maybe to the baby in her belly, or maybe to those old ghosts, she just didn't know, “You can ask, but can't make them tell.”

Quotes

"Sin boldly," Martin Luther.

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed," Theodore Roosevelt.

"There’s no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does," Bernhard Schlink.


"Anyone can say that they are a writer, but what truely separates writers apart is the actual act of continuously writing," Caroline V. Elster.