Flip flops are swift and his dirty toes saunter in them, flipping and flopping. Flip, flop in canyons deep crevasses in those dirty toes. He smells of cheap beer on the trolley to San Francisco’s rolling hilltops. At the tippy top of that hill she waits for him and his dirty toes. She’s humming a sweet song and strums the left side of her thigh. It itches. Beads of sweat drip down the nape of her neck. Her hair is bobbed like stonework, neatly but jagged. She’s tired. She worked the night shift at the diner. Butter and grease stench her clothes like a stain. Stains, she has those too. A little boy spilt his mother’s coffee on her apron, it looked like swelling rust on the crisp white of the utility-esque clothe. His hands sliver into hers when they meet. They wait together as he grabs his duffle bag. It’s packed with dirty clothes and his toothbrush. He tripped. Laughter sounded laughter. 

Mud season. Carl behind the wheel. Emerson and Kerry in back. Rain beats the windshield. Outside town. By the hill before Bigalow’s farm. Over a rut, then another and one more. We hit Dead Man’s Curve. Wheels slip. Carl slams the breaks. He tries to spin it left, but he’s forced to let go. So the truck, nose up, spun back into a ditch. And we were stuck. 

            If my mother was twenty-eight when she had me, and he was 10 years older than her, then he was thirty-eight. He must have been married by then, but he didn’t have any children. She said that he used to hold me. He would touch my swollen feet and squeeze my plump toes and say that they looked like exotic hors d’oeuvres. That seems so affectionate for a thirty-eight year old man, a man like him.

            I don’t think that he and my mother were very close. Probably because we didn’t see him that much when I was little. We would only see them on Christmas day. His wife was Jewish, so it was one of the holidays that they would not be celebrating with her family. He would come to our house in December wearing Birkenstocks and mismatched socks. And not just socks, but colorful socks, usually one orange and one pink.

            He was always the one to pick our Christmas presents and he was always inventive, or maybe quirky is a better word. One year he gave me a tape measurer because he thought that it is something that everyone should have, you know, in life. I think the best present he ever gave my siblings and I, though, was a collection of 80s horror films and ten pounds of raw meat. I don’t eat meat, but I did enjoy watching Weasels Rip My Flesh, which has probably the worst cinematography of any movie I’ve ever seen. It was such a joke. The flesh-eating weasel looked like a giant turd with legs. I remember my uncle kept shouting, “Look out, it’s a giant excrement!” at the top of his lungs, “A GIANT EXCREMENT!” Now that I think about it, I don’t know how this man was related to my mother. My mother yelled at us when we chewed gum in public. “It’s not ladylike,” she would say.

            My uncle was an artist. He lived in New York City, only a few blocks from the Holland Tunnel. I remember one year, I was probably eleven. My family went into New York to see a show and we stopped by my uncle’s apartment before dinner. My uncle had a pet snake, named Pete. My other uncle, his brother, was named was Pete. I never thought of that before, but that’s pretty funny. Anyways, that night my uncle decided it was time to feed Pete. Out of a crumbled brown paper bag, he pulled three little white mice. He held them upside-down by their tails and dropped them in Pete’s cage. My uncle said I should watch, that it was fascinating to see Pete in action. I shut my eyes tight. Even the thought of it horrified me. Afterwards, we went to the soup dumpling restaurant around the corner from his place, it was my favorite, but I didn’t eat anything.

            This whole episode made me think my uncle was cruel, at least for a while. But, I don’t think he was, not the man who squeezed my toes. What my uncle really was, was eccentric. He liked being unpredictable. It’s funny, my mother commissioned him to do a piece for our living room when she redecorated. She had hired this really froo-froo interior decorator, who insisted on having several meetings with my uncle. He tried to tell him that he should stick to earth tones in the piece, no extreme colors. He clearly didn’t know my uncle. I don’t think my uncle followed a guideline in his entire life. Well, that’s a little extreme, but let’s just say he never liked being restricted.

            A few months later, my uncle brought out his painting from the city. It was a pretty large piece, probably eight by ten feet, I would say. Well of course, it had lime greens, blues, oranges, yellows, reds, and some grays and a few brownish earth tones mixed in. The shapes looked almost machine-ish, but they were toned down by the brighter colors. And the main shape, would you call it a figure maybe, well it had four feet coming out of it. It sounds so bizarre when you try to describe it, but somehow it worked perfectly in our living room. It complemented the room, in a way I don’t think anyone would have guessed.

            Of course the piece was abstract because that is what my uncle painted. But, I would always try to figure out what the paintings were really about. My uncle told us when he dropped off the piece for the living room that it was called, Crazy Mayan Chicken God, he was full of shit. What I think, well, I think that the feet in the painting represent my mother, my uncle and their two brothers, and the machine-ish thing is my grandfather, but that is just a guess. I’m probably wrong. Knowing my uncle, it could have been anything. Anyways my uncle would never tell me what it really was. He is all about the experience of art. He doesn’t believe that the artist should have any impact on someone viewing his or her art. Each person should have his or her own untainted experience. I would have loved to have known what he was thinking about, even for just one of his pieces. 

            I’ve stopped seeing him now, my uncle, now that my parents are dead. It’s like there isn’t an obligation anymore. I stroked the glass frame. My mother was probably three in the picture, barefoot, wearing a polka-dotted dress. So he must have been thirteen. He was already tall. His shoulder was bent awkwardly so he could hold my mother’s hand. They were so far apart, ten years, its not surprising that they weren’t that close, that we’re not that close. 

Story #1—first person narration

            Claire picks up the phone during dinner. Normally, this would totally bother me, but it doesn’t. She sits across from me, chatting away with her mom, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and a cardigan with a fabulous paisley pattern of oranges and blues, a pattern I know I could never pull off.

            “No, way! I can’t believe y’all did that.” She’s from Houston, probably the only vegan in the whole state of Texas. She plays with her chopsticks, threading noodles of her tofu pad thai.

            “Yeah, I talked to Gi-Gi earlier. She says she’s really pumped up for her match tomorrow.” Her sister’s name is Georgiana, a good Southern name. Claire says that they’re close, I’ve never met her.

            “Ok, mommy. Well, I better go. Tell Craigo I say congrats.”

            She hangs up. She smiles and says, “So apparently my parents went out and bought a new grill today. My dad’s super excited.” She returns to her pad thai, taking a big bite of tofu. I laugh to myself.

Story #2—second person narration

            Mid-April. The first really hot day this spring. You’re done with sweaters and boots. Sifting through your clothes, you pull out your white eyelit tank top. Pulling it over your head, your arms raised, you notice several small tufts of skin. “Oh my god. What are these?”

            “Ewwwww!” your friend screams, “I think they’re skin tags.” You try to pull at one, flicking it back and forth, pulling hard, but this just irritates it more. Great, just what you need, a nice little garden of skin tags under your armpits.

Of course, your initial association with skin tags is Ms. Stacks, fat, old Ms. Stacks. She was your tenth grade history teacher. Remember, she reminded you of Wario, that character that was always picked last in Mario Cart. She was like a gremlin in every way. Stout and her skin was patchish. She would always raise her arms when she lectured and reveal masses of skin tags crowded on her underarms. Everyone was repulsed by her. There’s no forgiving skin tags.

Story # 3—third person

             She swirls her cheerios around her bowl and drops her spoon with a clank, sighing, “I mean. This is a joke.”

            Her friend rubs her shoulder. “He’s gonna call you back, Em.”

            “But, seriously, what is his deal? We hung out on Friday, everything was great. We went to dinner. Conversation was good, not awkward. Not like last time.”

            “Last time?” her friend looked puzzled.

            “Remember Valentine’s?” she said. “This is before we were really friends. He took me out, got flowers—”

            “Oh, yeah!” her friend exclaimed. “Hey, wait, Em didn’t you kind of blow him off after that?”

            “I mean, I wouldn’t say that,” she swirls her cheerios some more. “Well, yeah, ok kind of.”

            “So, he’s probably just nervous. He doesn’t want to be over the top this time.”

            “I guess. That’s a good point,” she conceded. “But, I mean, seriously, he needs to get it together.”

           The appeal, the adorable quaintness of her pink bow-tied frilly furred body, ceased the second she pooed on my new white sneakers.

            I stood up slowly. The dog walker’s face was stunned, embarrassed, as if she had just crapped on them herself. She was kind of a mousy woman, with straggly brown hair and a tiny turnipped nose. She coughed, “Uh-uh-um. I-I’m so sorry.” Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out a small package of tissues. In the process she became tangled among the leashes. I did not envy her. Having to keep up with twelve of the frilliest upper east side pups, that couldn’t have been easy.

            “Thank you,” I said, cracking a smile, but she avoided my attempt to make eye-contact. As I wiped up, Prince-a-Pork-a-Petta, according to her dog tag’s, poo off my new sneakers, the odor was pungent. A stoic man in an expensive suit stood behind us in line. He looked insipid, bothered by our commotion, he was clearly in a hurry.

            When I looked up again, the dogwalker was gone. I watched her walk away, down the long city block, still tangled in a mess, and I threw the dirty tissue away in the nearest waste bin.

            Walking the other way on 14^th Street, back in the direction of the hospital, I was preparing myself. They already made fun of me, the other doctors, they called me, “Nurse Jim,” because I wore white sneakers. They thought they were very clever. It’s all part of the culture, the mentality, in which they get off on putting each other down. That’s not what I get off on, for sure. I wish I could quit, but with seven years and over $100,000 in tuition, I’m stuck. 

Mrs. Lincoln’s voice drones. Seventeen girls in wool skirts stare back at her blankly, the sun beating through the classroom windows burns the backs of their privileged necks. A girl in the second row with silky blond hair yawns, stretching upwards with her thin arms, she settles once more in her chair. Two rows back, a different girl taps her pen restlessly, beads of sweat run between the desk chair and her brown thighs. Running her fingers over the monogram on the left breast pocket of her button-down, she was convinced that eighth grade history was a waste of time. She wondered whether Mrs. Lincoln would ever stop talking, maybe she would let them out a few minutes early today.

There is a knock on the door, which is a welcomed disruption. Several girls perk up in their seats as their principle enters the room. She acknowledges Mrs. Lincoln with an informal nod and calls the blond from her place. The girl, blond hair swaying back and forth, walks to the front of the classroom, visibly concerned, she follows the principle out of the room and closes the door behind her.

The girl two rows behind the now empty seat begins to tap her pen once more. She wonders what the blond did to get called out of history class. She wishes she had done it too. Anything is better than the last fifteen minutes of Mrs. Lincoln’s class, those minutes were the slowest ones out of the hour, for sure. She undid her ponytail, pulling the elastic from her tangled dark-brown curls, and redid her hair to kill some time. As she refastens the last clip, the door opens once more, the blond follows the principle back in the classroom. Her fair skin reddened, her face wet with tears, she goes to her place and begins to pack up her backpack. Returning to the principle’s side, the principle places her pudgy-fingers on the blond’s small shoulders and addresses the class, “Kaitlyn’s father passed away this morning.” The blond sniffled, trying to stifle back her tears. “This is going to be an incredibly hard time for Kaitlyn’s family and they are all going to need our support,” she says, seeming completely unaware of the blond’s nearly limp body standing right next to her. She continues, “There are no plans for the funeral as of right now, but we will keep you all posted.” She begins to turn away, but then pipes in, “Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I wanted to remind you about the permission slips for next Wednesday’s trip. They were due yesterday and less than half of you handed them in.” Her lips pucker, she sighs at the girls, and then she uses her pudgy fingers to guide Kaitlyn out the door.

Reflecting on the tactless principle, she realizes that they now had something in common, she and the blond, something besides their monogrammed uniforms. She imagined that the word funeral must have panged the blond as incomprehensible, it did when she first heard it, when it was a reality. She did not envy the blond that day. Another bead of sweat dripped between the desk chair and her brown thighs and she continued to tap her pen.

“Slukie Slittles,” the pudgy boy muttered at the lunchroom table, salt and peppering his chowder.

            “Hey Iggie, what was that, whach you say?” Ben asked. Then he spied the sea of monstrous galivan girls. Thin, Amazonian, and pretty.

            Iggie and Ben saw them. They didn’t see Iggie and Ben. They never did. A moment passed, a breath, and they went back to their plans for the Selukilim. It was genius. It was going to win them awards. Such fame that those girls would recognize them and then they could have the audacious privilege of condemning those slukie slitties to the vollows. 

“Have you been drinking?”

“It’s five-thirty,” she responded. What an opener.

“Are you from around here young lady?”

“Well, no actually how’d ya guess?”

“You have that sexy Southern twang goin on.”

“Hmm,” she muttered trying desperately to concentrate on the remaining tuna salad on the plate in front of her.

The scruffy man decided to sit on the bar stool to her left. He tried again. “I’m Phil. I’m the local mechanic here in Midland.”

“Hi, Phil,” she said trying to play down her accent. She flicked a piece of lettuce off the napkin on her lap.

“So, uh, what brings you here to Midland?”

“I’m a flight attendant. I’m on a layover.”

“Oh a stewardess,” he perked up.

“No, a flight attendant.” And she called to the bartender, “Check please.”

“I have always wanted brook trout for breakfast,” she said deliriously.

“What the fuck is brook trout?”

“Well, I’m not so sure actually. But, I met a man last night who told me he ate brook trout for breakfast. He was handsome.”

“Is that how you ended up in here then—a handsome man?”

“Well, actually, I’m not so sure about that either,” she flashed a courteous smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I stabbed someone last night, on the beach, in Oahu Bay. He insulted my new rap lyrics—called ’em pussyfoot’n,” he sputtered.

“O-oh.” 

Two Sentence Short Fiction with Stranger Studies

            He was predisposed to liking her, because she was detailed, like a corset with one hundred loop hole buttons, worth waiting for and so he waited as she paced around the tea house in high corked heels and a kimchi kimono, her wrist donning bangles made of chunky turquoise, spinning the ice in her a mint julep, she looked well-traveled, she had a freckle for every place she had been speckled between each cheek bone, she was both young and old. Sidling over to him, she disposed of her cigarette bud in his drink and walked out to the gardens, entranced, he followed her, she was standing under a Japanese maple and he approached her, extending his tight, sinewy arm, his hand encompassing the bend in her back, he pulled her closer to him, cinching the fabric of her kimono, his fingertips grazed her upper thigh, he whispered promises of the Emerald Isles, promises he could never keep.

Stranger Study # 1

Description

Her skin is smooth and tan, freckly. Petite and well dressed. Business casual. Small features, small woman. The raspberry red blazer compliments her neat bob. Reading glasses rest low on her nose, secured by a beaded string. A youthful turquoise and read beaded necklace is strewn around her necklace. The heels of her loafers are worn.

Movement

Fingers spread like a peace sign across her face. She shuffles through the paper, smoothing out the pages. Her hands settle once more on her face. She flips back a few pages, then back to the cover, crinkling the pages.

Me Included

I peer over her shoulder. She doesn’t notice me. She stares intently. Enthralled in USA Today. The Travel Section, ironically. “For 10,000, See the word from a richly detailed 757.” Even more ironic. “Hotels Crown Guitar Heroes: Guests get in on Wii, Xbox action.” Xbox reminds me of James. I’ll see him soon.

Stranger Study # 2

Description

Wide eyed. His plaid shirt is too big for him. He has thin, sinewy arms, they’re smooth. He has two distinct freckles on his face. One is on his cheek, the other above his left eyebrow. He is wearing a bracelet or maybe a hair elastic, either way it seems out of place.

Movement

His right hand rests, encompassing his mouse. He directs it around in small circles. Clicking intently. Then he goes back to typing. All his fingers work the keyboard, moving about with quick flicks.

Me Included

He is clearly working on something. I am too, but the more I look at him he looks old. I guess because he is a small man, in a youthful setting, I assumed he was young. I think it’s his eyes, they’re baggy, but he looks older than he did upon first glance.

Stranger Study # 3

Description

She’s small but she is wearing tall shoes. Her long dark hair hits the bend in her back. She is wearing high-wasted shorts and a white t-shirt tucked in. A green sweater with diamond-shaped pokka-dots is wrapped around her shoulders.

Movement

She is pacing around the café, carrying a bag of potato chips. She takes a single chip out of the bad, holds it between her pointer and her thumb, with her pinky upright, as if she were holding a china tea cup.

Me Included

Her civility heightens my awareness of the greasy wrap dripping in front of me. Both she, the Queen of England and my mother, would be repulsed. You don’t have grease stained fingers at high tea.

Stranger Study # 4

Description

Her nose is upturned. Tall, but not lanky. Bottom heavy, pear-shaped, in a bright purple sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Movement

Clenching her pen, she write furiously. Pen down. One hand clenching a latte. She sips it strangely. Applying the same force to this action as she did with the pen. Cocking her head back, her neck strained, and her lips puckered, she sucks the coffee down.

Me Included

She has an aura of superiority. I’m sure she assumes that she is smarter than me. Always confident of what she is saying. Eager to offer her thoughts, but at the same time, not enthused. A dead-pan voice accompanies her dead-pan stare.