SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME
By JS Van Buskirk. Ph.D

Having lived in shadow these many years, I have now resolved to venture, if briefly, into sunlight to unburden my heart of the secrets it has borne these many years while I have been living in shadow. At the center of my heart, the cause of all my secret pain and the tether that pulls me ever forward without rest, is one man. The only man. Neal Pollack.

To tell this story, I must begin far in the past, long before I ever laid eyes on the man. My story begins when I was but a child of barely 4 years of age. Because of the preternatural strength and agility I displayed in my pre-school tumbling class, I was taken by agents of the notorious crime-lord Thomas "Tommy Gun" Gunn to be trained as an assassin in his stronghold in the Pyrenees.

The training took many years. It was grueling and painful, but I learned quickly and gratefully. I take great pride in the depths of my mastery of the skills of concealment, tracking, disguise, and of the forty-two ways to kill a man without laughing. Tommy performed most of my training himself, and from the moment my training was complete I was his falcon. I flew out to kill at his command and returned bloody to his hand. To be a killer, one's loyalty must be absolute, as my loyalty to Tommy was absolute.

He cherished me as a man cherishes his gun or his car. I was never to hold his heart and his deepest affection. No woman did, until Marika entered our lives.

Marika was an expatriate Russian former ballerina. She had washed up on a beach in Majorca after escaping the pleasure yacht of the Turkish billionaire who had found her penniless and working as a belly-dancer in Ankara. Tommy was strolling along the shore after a late meeting with certain associates in the nutritional supplement business, and he found her there. She was shivering in the cold light of dawn, her once diaphanous trousers sodden and clinging, her spangles clinking and glimmering weakly. Her dancer's body was shown to advantage in that rosy light. Helpless and alone, she was nonetheless defiant. No man could possibly have resisted her unless he had really wanted to. She took one long look down into Tommy's steely eyes and he was hers, completely.

When he returned with her to his stronghold in the Pyrenees, I was evicted from my pallet space at the end of his bed where I had slept since I was twelve to a small room off the main entry hall. For many nights I cried bitter tears. And yet, seeing Tommy in love served only to intensify my devotion. Marika was his everything. Their joy suffused the entire stronghold. Indeed, her arrival signaled the beginning of a golden time of happiness and prosperity.

Every enterprise flourished. My own work had never brought me more satisfaction. My targets seemed to smile back at me as their necks snapped between my hands, and I was proud to return to Tommy with a job well done. Those years were the salad daysÑthe time of the only true contentment I will ever know.

We could not have known that the destruction of all our happiness was even then walking the earth in the form of a man, and that man was Neal Pollack.

***

Our doom began innocently enough, with Marika's annual two week shopping trip in to Bilbao. Even an extremely powerful crime-lord like Tommy Gun could not have kept the most beautiful and luxurious woman ever to jingle on earth happy without a lot of credit cards. She usually went to Bilbao for her shopping because particularly enjoyed the art and would frequently make requests to Tommy for specific pieces from the Guggenheim.

About half-way through the first week of her trip that year, I set out myself on an assignment. One of Tommy's associates had proved unreliable. He had disappeared with some cash and a disgraced CSPAN reporter. The man had been a faithful associate for many years, and it was my job to learn if he should be brought back into the fold or if he should be buried in the wilderness into which he had chosen to stray. It took about two weeks. After that, I had to buy a new bottle opener, and then it took another two weeks to get my shoes clean before I was able to return to my happy home.

I soon sensed that something was very, very wrong. The henchmen guarding the secret entrance in Ronces Valles couldn't even look me in the eyes. I gave the password and they wouldn't speak, only nod. When I reached the main compound, the silence that greeted me there was deathly. I dropped my knapsack on my pallet in my room and went searching for Tommy to report to him that a bare minimum, no more than 1.37%, of his former associate's remains were identifiable with current technology. There was never a chance to give Tommy the good news.

After searching for many hours, I finally found Tommy up on the roof. He was sitting on the ledge of one of the parapets that graced his stronghold, kicking his feet desultorily and gazing out towards the monastery. He had been crying, I was shocked to see. Clutched in his hand was a single piece of pale pink paper. A faint breeze carried a whiff of patchouli toward me. It could only be a letter from Marika.

"What has happened?" I asked. Tommy slowly turned his face toward me. He said nothing, but held out the crumpled letter. I took it and quickly spread it out on the rough stone surface of the parapet ledge, pressing my hands on the edges to hold it flat. The letter was short. Tearstains in the purple ink made the words hard to read. I couldn't tell who had cried them.

Solnyshko Moyo Tomasch, Ya zatrudnyaus! I am tormented! There is another and he has taken my heart. He does not love me, but I cannot return to you. Ya tak lyublyutbya, pavermne! I do love you so, but my only chance at happiness is to make whatever attempt I can to win the notice of this devil, this angel, this master of my soul! Good bye my love! Do svidaniya, slyvbovyu! Marika

Upon reading the letter, I could only stare at Tommy open mouthed. I think I asked him, "But who could . . .?" I didn't know it then, but there was only one man who could have stolen Marika's heart and sanity in less than a month's time.

At that moment, Eric, one of Tommy's entry level trainees, appeared at the top of the stairs. He was panting from the climb, and his face was distorted with pain. Tears were flowing from his wide eyes as he gasped out, "I've just come from Bilbao! She's dead!"

Tommy jumped down from the parapet ledge and demanded "How?! Tell me what has happened to her!"

Eric reached his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out what appeared to be a hardcover book jacket, and proffered it to Tommy, saying "They found this near her. um. They found this near her."

Taking the torn book cover almost gently in his hands, Tommy turned his back to us, facing back over the mountains towards the monastery. He read the name on the book cover. Then, suddenly, leaping like a cat, he jumped up on to the parapet ledge and shook the cover at the sky, shouting "DAMN YOUR SOUL TO HELL, NEAL POLLACK! YOU MIGHT BE THE SOLE GIFT OF AN UNCARING UNIVERSE TO A BEKNIGHTED HUMANITY BUT I CURSE YOU ALL THE SAME! AND I WILL SEE YOU IN HELL!"

I was frozen with grief and fear, and could only stare at my beloved master as he shook his fists at the sky. He kept shouting,

"YOU HEAR ME POLLACK?!!!!"

"POLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!"

As the echoes of his cries died in the distance, Tommy dropped his arms. He looked once more at the book jacket in his hand, then released it to be carried away by the breeze. Tommy slumped, defeated by grief. He reached into the pocket of his LL Bean barn jacket and pulled out a small pen-like object. Eric saw this and immediately took off down the stairs, yelling for everyone to get out. I wasn't prepared to leave Tommy, even if he was holding the detonator for 27 thousand pounds of C4 wired throughout the stronghold, which he was in fact holding. I would have stayed by his side and been happy, but he had a plan for me.

"Joanie," he said, "Avenge me. It was for this fate that I had you kidnapped from Mrs. Malispina's Tumbling for Toddlers class all those years ago. His name is Neal Pollack, and I charge you as your last task on this earth to kill him. NOW RUN!"

It was all I could do to make some noise of assent before fleeing down the stairs. I grabbed my knapsack from my room and escaped through a passage that let me out in the crypt of the monastery. I was just climbing onto my motorcycle in the company garage in Ronces Valles when the explosion went. It broke every window in town. I could've watched the parapets tumble one by one if I hadn't been blinded by my tears. The icy wind in my face dried them as I raced to Bilbao seeking vengeance.

***

In the safe house in Bilbao I found signs of Eric's hasty departure. A bowl's worth of congealed Spaghetti-Os were spilled on the floor, almost obliterating the front page article of yesterday's International Herald Tribune.

MYSTERIOUS BEAUTY KILLS SELF:
DOCTOR BLAMES HER PASSION FOR NEAL POLLACK
My eyes barely registered the few lines of the article I could read through the tomato sauce. ". . . half-consumed remains of Mr. Pollack's latest masterpiece. The woman, believed to be the unbelievably desirable mistress of import-export entrepreneur Thomas Gunn, apparently choked herself to death by forcing Mr. Pollack's book down her own throat. Doctors suspect . . ."

I wondered. What qualities of a man did this Pollack have that could turn a devastating tigress such as Marika into a helpless slave of desire? What was in his mind that she would die choking on his book just to digest a few pages worth of words? I now know the answers to those questions, to my eternal suffering.

I could have left then. I could have returned to Ronces Valles and joined Tommy. I could have run to the waterfront and signed onto a freighter. I could have moved to California and founded a clinic for high-kidnapping risk executives. Anything that could have saved me from coming under the spell of Neal Pollack. I did none of those things. How could I have known my danger? I had Marika's example before me, but to me she was an alien creature. I thought of myself as a killer, never as a woman, so I set out to kill the man who had destroyed my world.

He was easy to find. The whole city was aflame with his presence, and it was simple enough to follow the rumors and the giddy clusters of intelligentsia to the center of their whirling dance of social intrigue. Days passed as I watched him and told myself I was waiting for the perfect time. I realized my mistake when I suddenly realized I was watching him pack his bags to leave Spain. What had I been doing?! Enraged and ashamed, I immediately leapt across the space between my stake-out in an abandoned hotel across the alley into the open window of his room.

I think I caught him by surprise, but I hesitate to underestimate him. He might have known I was there the whole time. I held my stiletto knife out in front of me as I moved toward him. He did not cringe or show any fear. I could see the lucid intelligence in his eyes and not a trace of fear as he watched the blade I was holding.

"I have killed more men than died digging the Panama Canal," I told him. "My hands have held endless pain for the hundreds of poor souls I have tortured just to be sure they understood something," I said, stepping closer with every word. Soon I was standing in front of him, the point of my stiletto blade piercing his white lawn shirt and drawing a spot of blood. With a quick motion of my left hand, I tossed a thin loop of rope around his neck. Still he did not flinch or say a word. "I am here to kill you now," I said, "Kneel!"

He finally spoke. He said "What?"

I said, "Kneel!"

He said, "What?"

"On your knees, damn you!"

At that, he said, "Oh," and looked into my eyes.

My hands dropped to my sides, my knife dropped to the floor, and my world was destroyed a second time. Perhaps he spoke, I do not know. Someone knocked at the door. Room service. I fled, leaping out the window the way I had come in. For hours I lay curled and sobbing in my hide-out, a pathetic creature with no reason to live except to kill the man who must become my reason for living.

Tommy's words rose up in my mind, I charge you as your last task on this earth to kill him. Very well, I thought to myself. My last task on this earth will be to kill Neal Pollack, in that I will honor my beloved master. I will not harm a hair on Neal Pollack's head until he is a breath away from oblivion. In the mean time, I am resolved that no one else shall touch him, so I continue to watch him, waiting silently for my appointed hour, and destroying any who intend to harm him. At least six in the past ten years, dispatched without fuss and without his ever suspecting a thing. So far as it is in my power, we have many more years ahead of us.

BACK TO TOP

A STORY OF ONE MAN'S PERSONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST TERRORISM
By Eric Olson, Ph.D.

In the wake of the events of September 11^th, I was nervous about boarding a plane. 

Images of another commercial airliner, engulfed in flames, hurtling toward some national monument or another, haunted my dreams. 

Planned business trips were cancelled, family reunions postponed.  I put off the inevitable return to the no longer so friendly skies. 

The time finally came when it was not possible for me to stay away from flight any longer.  An important business trip made it necessary for me to fly to New York, a five-hour trip from Denver International Airport.

I was not looking forward to it.

Upon entering the airport my palms became instantly drenched with sweat, my heart rate skyrocketed.

I checked my bags and made the long journey through security checkpoints and finally arrived at the terminal.  The long wait only made my anxiety worse.  I listed in my head the possible terrorist targets between Denver and New York. Sears Tower, the Liberty Bell.  Would terrorists wish to smash another plane into the remains of the World Trade Center?

I handed over my boarding pass to the flight attendant who smiled bravely as I passed.  Behind that professional face I could see the fear, the pain, the paranoia so prevalent in American air travelers over the past few months. 

"Hmm."  I contemplated these options.

"Mr. Andersen sounds like quite a catch," said Edna.

"Oh, yes." said the attendant. "Everyone thinks so."

The ninth and tenth Valium felt like they hadn"t gone down properly.

"I"ll take the monkey."

As I entered the lavatory in which his cage was placed, Bobo let out a series of sharp screeches that I found most charming.  He bared his teeth and trailed his paw through some of his own feces that had gathered at the bottom of the cage.

"This," I thought. "Is what America is all about."

Since that day, I am no longer afraid of flying.  The terrifying thoughts of plunging into the majestic wires of the Golden Gate Bridge or dragging a trail of engine parts and wing fragments into the brilliantly illuminated Hollywood sign, have been replaced by the soft, loving caress of Bobo.

Each time I enter a plane, I am no longer suspicious of my fellow passengers.  Instead I try to catch a glimpse of that magnificent creature that showed me what America can be. 

Thank you, Bobo, wherever you may be flying now.  Thank you, and carry on that most paramount of all missions.  Don't let terrorism silence your message of love and compassion for all living things.  Continue your fight for freedom and maintain your vigilance in the name of democracy.

There are few things in this life that give us hope.  Don't let your tiny monkey-beacon of greatness be extinguished. 

BACK TO TOP

MY NEAL POLLACK
By A. J. Daulerio, CPA

My Neal Pollack is not this Neal Pollack.  My Neal Pollack went to Churchville Elementary School and was half Puerto Rican. My Neal Pollack used to have short, curly hair, which was pasted to his head. He was short, maybe five-foot-three, and was simian-like. He also had overdeveloped arms for a 4^th grader. There is no reason anyone should have biceps in 4^th Grade. But my Neal Pollack did. He was a hit with the ladies, my Neal Pollack was. He would always end up kissing girls after skating parties. I would marvel as my Neal Pollack skated backwards and held Erica Baatz’s hands. He had such fluid hips. He knew how to open up his legs and bring a girl through the other end. I used to yelp uncontrollably when he did that. My Neal Pollack made me want to be half Puerto Rican. He was that good.

When we got to junior high school, My Neal Pollack didn’t grow. He was still five-three. My Neal Pollack never made “the leap” that so many expected. He was not riding a motorcycle to school, or scoring touchdowns as a star running back. He wasn’t dating college girls at age 13. And the rest of his body never caught up with his baseball-sized biceps. But, he was still My Neal Pollack.  I loved watching My Neal Pollack saunter through the hallways. Even though nobody was hoisting My Neal Pollack up on their shoulders, or even offering him high-fives, he still had an air about him

In 11^th Grade, my Neal Pollack grew darker. His hair grew quite nappy. Save his half Puerto Rican features, My Neal Pollack looked black. During this time, had made “the leap” and was a popular senior in high school. I was “knockin’ boofty out of the box”, as they said back then, and hung around the star basketball players, the class president, and the captain of the football team. I also played guitar in a punk-rock band. The ladies thought I was “eccentric”. But, My Neal Pollack was still 5’3. He still hadn’t made “the leap”. I never forgot him, though. I used to call My Neal Pollack “Theo” because he resembled Malcolm Jamal-Warner’s character on The Cosby Show. That might have been an inappropriate thing to say, but that’s what happens when you go to an all-white high school.  “Hey Theo!” I’d say as we passed each other in the hallway. “What’s up, A.J.”, he’d reply.  We did this for a few months and then I graduated. I haven’t seen My Neal Pollack since.

So, I was sitting at work, thinking about The Cosby Show, and I thought of Theo, My Neal Pollack. I did a Google search for Neal Pollack and all these sites referring to The Greatest American Writer and pictures of a nude man and a cat appeared. I had hoped that this was My Neal Pollack, the one so many people were referring to as a wonderful author. The one who was interviewed in all of these cool publications, like Flak, Ironminds, and the Boston Phoenix. My Neal Pollack had finally made “the leap”, I thought. “The leap” everyone expected him to make almost 15 years ago. I e-mailed this person, who I thought was My Neal Pollack and wanted to congratulate him on all his accomplishments. This Neal Pollack wrote me back. He wasn’t My Neal Pollack. He wasn’t Theo. But, This Neal Pollack’s kind of cool, too.

BACK TO TOP

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH NEAL POLLACK
By Anthony Mascorro, MD

And so it came to pass that through a mist of cigarette smoke and over a lacquered bar top littered with peanut shells and pornographic magazine cut-outs, our eyes met, the cosmos ruptured, and our love affair began.  Pollack winked.  Or did he blink?  I had no way to be sure; I was only watching the one eye.  But from behind that eye shone all the radiance, desire, and electro-magnetic magnetism of two: the single pupil a double abyss; the single set of eyelashes adorned with more than enough mascara for an additional set.  My nights of talking to Neal’s book jacket photograph while stroking a patch of algae that I assumed to have a texture similar to that of his goatee were over. Our bout of barstool eye-tag had marked the genesis of a new era for both of us. 

As the Northeastern March grayness gave way to blue skies and dandelion fluff, Pollack and I spent innumerable hours strolling through Central Park, drinking wine out of jelly jars, and discussing the socio-political implications and syntactical brilliance in the works of such cultural behemoths as Zora Neale Hurston and Tom Clancy.  Dancing about the fireplace in clogs and a feather boa, I’d often call out to no one in particular:  “Oh Neal, my Neal, eternal Neal...” Neal would crane his neck around the walk-in closet door jamb:  “Yes, Anthony?”  I’d chuckle at not having realized I’d spoken aloud, and then say, “Come on Pollack, put on that red dress and let’s go dancing.”

Other nights, I bore witness to a quieter side of Neal.  Often over dinner, a philosophical, far-off expression would emerge on his countenance.  I knew that if I waited quietly, he would blow my mind.  He would come to, face dancing in ochre candlelight, gaze at the remnants of his spare ribs and utter, “But what does it all mean?  Why are we here?  Was Percy right about the singularities of time and space, or could we be anywhere at any moment and lead an essentially identical existence?  Was Sartre totally full of shit?  Did the cow that produced the meal I just ate experience physical and psychological pain?  What is chaos?  Will the universe remain unchanged if I order a double chocolate mousse, and if I do will it go straight to my hips?”             

Although at first I attempted to solicit Neal’s erudite, though monumentally sensitive, criticism of my own poetry, he proved to be, as all great artists are, physically sickened by the thought of aiding another in the development of his craft.  The period of his activity as my literary mentor began and ended with his informing me, rather curtly, that the definition of the word “ostensibly” has nothing to do with dental hygienics.  To all subsequent requests for artistic guidance, he would, depending on the hour and the number of gin spritzers he’d had, either don a pair of sunglasses and glare out the window or continue auditioning fishnet stockings in his full-length mirror, absently asking my opinion and ignoring my advances toward creative communion. 

Neal, Neal, my eternal Neal.  Do you remember a single summer’s night on the countryside, gazing at stars and a Swiss cheese moon, swatting at dragonflies and reciting passages from the Diaries of Anais Nin?  Oh, the pleasure I took in hearing your poignant insights and exfoliating your feet.  And in composing sonnets and haikus: 

“O Neal, your eyes shone a shimmer that is not a shine

and your shins share

a

show of your sheath”

True, this last was not your favorite of my compositions, but I remember one you were quite fond of:   “Kneel, Neal!”Simple, you said, yet ample in linguistic horseplay and punnery.

And that’s the way things were; the way we were; the way Neal and I were beginning to blossom into togetherness.  We talked about marriage, kids, a picket fence cottage in Southern Vermont, and a seaside beach house in Cali.  Things were getting, as penis augmentation surgeons say, “big.” 

What, then, happened to our sweet paradise?  What reaper bore his shaft into the cavity of my soul, which is clearly marked No Shafts Allowed?  Was it the freewheeling nature of his artist’s spirit?  Perhaps it was my failure to satisfy his gargantuan intellectual and aesthetic appetites.  Could it have been my insistence on giving away his stiletto heels to female dancers in the parking lot of the School of American Ballet?  I do not know.  No one, save for Neal Pollack himself, knows the reason behind our demise.  No one but him can tell me why, on that blustery April morning, he stepped out for a carton of Luckys and disintegrated forever.  And it is the quest for this reason that moves me to write today, to seek publication for this maudlin, tearful remembrance of things Neal, in the hopes that he will peruse the following and respond:    

Dearest Neal,

I know not where you are.  I know not whom you see.  I know not why you ran away, away, away from me.

Despite all the answers to the riddles of existence that your mere presence gave to me softly and without effort, I have but one question that remains:  Who do you think you are, you cold, heartless bastard?  I cooked, I cleaned, I mended your tattered underthings and copied out in longhand, at your request, a hundred copies of your Anthology of American Literature, despite the mounds of professionally published copies that saturated the apartment.  What am I, a secretary?  A house pet?  A slice of cured pork?  Who do you think you are?  I gave you everything, you tyrant!  Please take me back.  Just send me your address. I’ll turn tricks for airfare.  Please, please, please!  I’m drowning in tenderness for you!  You bastard!

Love,

Tone

There it is.  From the heart.  Devoid of any pretentious literary-referential bullshit, and it will last forever.   

And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Neal Pollack. 

BACK TO TOP

AN EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL I KEPT WHILST NEAL POLLACK AND I WERE STRANDED IN THE DISTANT PAST, ON A FLOATING ISLAND MADE OF PETRIFIED DINAOSAUR ANURE; OUT OF SMOKES AND WITHDRAWING SLIGHTLY
By Dean Alan Haakenson, Ph.D.

Day 3: One might think that the shock of my current situation would have worn off by now but it has not. This being the first entry of this here logbook, I feel inclined to provide a little background. Three days ago, Neal and I arrived at Neal's house on the outset of a very unsuccessful attempt at getting laid (not by each other, of course, but beyond that, we weren't being very picky). We dressed ourselves up and headed to the local discotheque to play the dating game. Neal struck out twice and I drank myself too silly before I got a chance to try. A transvestite fella named "Sally" did buy me a drink and offered to relieve my tension, but he really did nothing for me. Nice guy though. The only things we managed to collectively score were a cocktail glass and two hits of what looked to be some really good Ecstasy. Weird looking pills, bright blue gelcaps. They seemed electric and alive. Of course, being drunken, I took my pill when Neal took his and didn't think much about it. But looking back, there was something just not quite right about that blue. It reminded me of fire. A blue flame dancing coolly as it burns away the rain.

So we started tripping and arrived home in good spirits. The refrigerator was plentiful, the music came out so sweet, my steady hand created, and the carpet soothed my feet. And then as we started to peak, Neal paused and a look of panic came over his face. "What the hell was that?", he asked, frightened. I had never seen him that way, so it greatly frightened me also.

"What?" I asked softly

"I don't feel right."

As he said it, I started to feel not so right myself. The world seemed to kind of bend at certain angles that I was not accustomed to. Everything seemed to take on a cool blue fuzzy tone. Sounds dulled. I was "accelerating", for lack of a better word, yet completely standing still. My equilibrium was non-existent. I looked around the room and Neal was staring at the wall behind me, blank faced. A few seconds passed and everything went from a blue to completely white. I whited out. My vision returned in a few short moments and I was here on this piece of shit with this Neal of whom I was already beginning to get sick.

We literally are stranded on what appears to be a large circular-floating piece of dung that must have been pinched off by the Almighty himself. In a moment of desperation, Jah squats near the weaker ones. We are currently floating about two or three miles off the shore of this jungle-looking stretch of land. The water is surprisingly calm, but, much to my dismay, I have not seen one living thing. No fish. I think we are slowly floating farther and farther out to sea. I tried to paddle this floating thing towards land, but I didn't appear to be making any difference and this water is so murky that I would rather not be touching it. The Aquaboogieman. Our Death Barge is circular, about 100 feet across, and full of this weed-like grass that smells like mint and tastes like broccoli. It is our only sustenance and whistles well when you put it in between your thumbs.

Man, Neal is losing it. About halfway through yesterday, Neal just started rambling about this and that. Intelligent things. Philosophical thoughts and deeply meaningful questions. I remember wishing that I had a tape recorder. Now I wish I had some tape because he won't shut up. Neal is rambling as I write this. Mumbling. He's gotten himself down to television commercial jingles and sentence fragments of no particular order.

"Just because you put two words together, Neal, doesn't mean that it makes sense"" I just said. I don't even think Neal was talking to me. I think I'm starting to ramble, myself. We know not when or where or why we are and, oddly, both Neal and I are contently dealing with the matter.

Day 4: Neal was pissing into the water, when all of a sudden, a large snake-eel looking thing jumped out of the water, gobbling up Neal's manflow, and landed on the edge of our bioraft. Neal quickly stepped on its midriff and I, like lightning, stomped on its head until it was dead. I have never seen anything like this creature before and I don't want to know if it was a big or small animal for this ecosystem that we have found ourselves in, but man, did that thing taste good. Of course we are starving, but me and Neal both thought that, even raw, that thing tasted like a BBQ tofu/eggplant surprise, slightly undercooked.

Day 5: Well, I think Neal and I are gonna die. The Land is barely visible now and there isn't as much mint grass as there used to be. Neal is being really optimistic and is still singing about and always trying to keep me talking. Maybe he is just delusional. Maybe he knows something that I don't. I don't see any reason to go on caring.

Day 6: Today I tried to kill myself by jumping in the water and drowning, but it is certainly harder than I thought it would be. You get to a point where you are ready to do it and you are under the water and you go to open your mouth and then your body won't let you. Like some defense mechanism, I tried to breath in some water, but I got a little bit in my lungs, closed it up, struggled to the top, where Neal pulled me out, and coughed myself back to breath.

Day 7: Weak Neal is gone. I don't know where he went, but he is gone. Maybe he swam back toward the land. Good luck Neal, wherever you are. You the Bomb. I think I will sleep now.

BACK TO TOP

NEAL POLLACK, WHO'S ALSO AN ALCOHOLIC
By Leah Melnicoe, HTS

"It's about a physicist. A physicist who's also an alcoholic. And its going to be entitled "Bored." This is John speaking. John has a little drinking problem, which he loves very much. He cultivates this problem like a tender plant. John is always unemployed, but he loves to write short stories. His last story was about an alcoholic chef. He has also written about an alcoholic sailor, a lawyer who happens also to be an alcoholic, and an alcoholic actor, among other vocations. But none of these stories ever satisfies John. He never gets past the first paragraph. Sometimes not even the first sentence. He feels so empty. So purposeless. Then one day John discovers Neal Pollack and his web site.

"This," he shouts, "is the greatest living American writer. And I am going to write him a fan fiction. A story about Neal Pollack, who's also an alcoholic."

For the first time in John's life, the words flow freely from his pen. The story is a masterpiece. A runaway hit. It's anthologized with the Best American Short Stories. He does interviews for Vogue and Entertainment Magazine. People say, "Are you Neal Pollack, who's also an alcoholic?" And John says, glowing with pride, "Yes."

The real Neal Pollack is mildly upset. "Was this not meant to be fan fiction?" he asks. "Am I not the true Neal Pollack? The reality behind this pallid imitation?"

"You are obsolete," says John and the world. "You are vastly less interesting than Neal Pollack, who's also an alcoholic. You have been improved upon, and you are no longer necessary. Please be quiet."

Neal Pollack who's also an alcoholic goes on to have a lucrative career writing for Dawson's Creek. The real Neal Pollack changes his name to Dwight and develops a drinking problem.

BACK TO TOP

"THE SUNDERING OF THE FELLOWSHIP": BEING THE FIRST PART OF THE WAR AGAINST NEAL POLLACK"
By Philip Toalston, Ph.D.

We walk around, Neal Pollack and I. After a while we get tired and sit down. I've been thinking about jogging to get in shape. Neal picks up a small stone and flicks it. It goes far into the street and we watch it bounce away until it becomes too small to track.

"That was a good flick," I say.

"Thanks," Neal says, looking around him for another pebble.

"It went really far," I tell him.

"Yeah, it was good," Neal agrees, and then he flicks another pebble only this time it doesn't go as far and I am not as impressed with him.

"That one sucked," I say.

Undaunted, Neal retrieves another pebble, apparently from some pebble-quarry nearby and gives it a mighty flick, and the flick is surprisingly loud and we think that it must have been a really glorious flick because the pebble disappears. Then we realize it has just rolled off his thumb and onto his pants. Neal becomes less and less effective at impressing me every time he does something. It's really childish at times how he tries to impress people.

"Why don't you just stop it already?" I ask him.

When Neal doesn't respond I realize that we are through with the pebble flicking and I am able to relax. When we are good and relaxed Neal suggests that we continue.

"What's the point?" I ask.

"What's the point in going?" Neal asks, and for a minute he appears to lean over and search for a pebble, but he catches himself and pretends as though he was looking for something else. "Yeah, I mean, why bother?"

"Because if we go, we get to not be here any more." I think about this for a minute. If there's one thing Neal is really good at, it's making points. So Neal stands up and from my seat on the sidewalk I stick my arm in the air to suggest that he aid me in my ascension, which is stupid, having someone help you up, because you end up doing all the work yourself anyway. We're both standing and we look around for a spell and then start walking.

I say, "I look really stupid in shoes."

"But you're wearing boots," says Neal.

"That's the point. I have to wear boots or else I look stupid."

"Why would you look stupid in shoes?"

"I don't know, I'm disproportioned. I think maybe it's my hips are too wide."

"You don't have hips. Women have hips."

"Pelvis then."

"Please don't say 'pelvis' anymore."

*****

The light in the sky is beginning to fade. "What time is it?" I ask.

"I don't know I don't wear a watch," Neal responds.

"I mean, I put them on and it just doesn't look right.

"Show me."

"What do you mean?"

"Trade with me, I'll wear your boots and you wear my sneakers. I want to see."

I look around to see if anyone is watching. I don't want anyone hot to see me in shoes. It could give them the wrong impression--that I'm a stupid looking person all the time. We sit down and I start unlacing my boots. Neal can just slip his off. He waits for me. He has nice shoes, Neal does. I put them on. They're a little big. We both stand up and Neal takes a step back and says, "Now let's see." I stand there while Neal inspects how I look in his shoes.

"Huh," he says.

"Huh what?"

"You really do look stupid."

"See." I turn and start walking when Neal stops me. "What?" I ask.

"Please, take them off," says Neal.

"Why?"

"You really need to not wear those."

Someone says, "No loitering, gentlemen." We turn around. Some guy has stepped out of some store behind us and has started to say things to us.

Neal gets all cool and insolent and says, "Who are you?"

The guy says, "I own this store and you're loitering in front of it. Please move."

This is the point when Neal and I get really grateful, because this is when an arrow comes from out of nowhere, pierces the store guy's shoulder, and kills him.

Neal and I inspect the arrow in the now-dead guy's shoulder. It is slender and made of very light, yet strong wood. It is an arrow of the type used by the Wood-Elves. Neal and I turn and look at each other. At the same time we say, "Legolas!"

"Yep," comes the voice of Legolas from the top of the building across the street. "Hi Legolas!" we say. "Hello!"

Legolas has been our friend ever since the War of the Rings, in which we all played pivotal roles. Legolas is an Elf. Legolas says, "It appeared as though you two were in need of a hand."

"Yeah," says Neal, "he was about to make us move further down the street."

"Not a minute too soon," I say.

"Verily," says Legolas, leaping down from the building and running over to meet us. We all embrace, as old friends do upon meeting.

Our embrace is interrupted by a strange sound. I look at Neal. Neal looks at Legolas who, because of his excellent hearing, has already identified the source of the sound. "He is moaning," Legolas says, pointing to the store owner. At that, Legolas fits his bow with another arrow, and lets it fly. This time his aim is more true and the store owner knocks off all the whining.

"What a baby," says Neal.

"Yeah," I say, "I mean, could he make a bigger deal out of it?"

We are both disturbed by a sudden change in Legolas' expression. He raises his eyes to the darkening sky. "For some time now there has been a shadow growing in my mind," he says. At that moment there comes a stiff, cold breeze. An unnamed fear falls upon us.

"What is it Legolas?" Neal asks, being a sissy.

"Nothing," says Legolas, "I was just screwing with you guys."

"Oh Legolas!" I say. "You old hound!"

We all have a good laugh.

*****

We have known for a long while that our time here has been coming to an end, so as the stars become bright as fire in the black sky, the three of us companions set out for the Gray Havens, where Legolas has prepared for us a sturdy, very seaworthy ship for our long journey across the sea, to the Elven-home. We board the ship, and just as we have set off, Legolas pushes Neal over the side and we laugh as he thrashes about in the black icy water.

"Do you think we'll ever seen Neal Pollack again?" I ask Legolas, who is standing at the stern of the ship, looking proud and fair.

"We just might, Philip. We just might."

"Sing me a song, Legolas. Sing me a song of the Elves," I say, and with that he begins singing, and his song is nice.

BACK TO TOP

OPEN MIC
By Tom Angelo, MFA

CAST OF CHARACTERS:

DOT CON: The hostess, she is a "punk girl" wearing a Rancid t-shirt and torn
black jeans
REVEREND JEWISH FARRAKHAN: A young white guy wearing a priest's frock, a
Muslim kufi, and a Star of David Medallion
ARTHUR BAXTER: A not-entirely-lucid black man in his late 60s/early 70s,
wearing a baseball cap and sweat suit
MC  JARVIS: A young white guy wearing baggy hip-hop jeans and whatever he
wants for a shirt
NEAL POLLACK: America's Greatest Living Poet

SETTING:
(The stage of Rick's Café. There is a large sign hanging from a wall,
visible to the audience, that reads "Rick's Café". In the center of the
stage is a podium with a microphone. DOT CON walks on stage).

DOT CON:

We're so glad you could make it tonight. Welcome to our latest Open Mic
reading.
If this is your first time at Rick's, allow me to introduce myself. My name
is Dot Con. That's Dot - D-o-t, Con, as in "Con Ed." My name is an ironic
comment on the increasing commercialization of our society. The young men
and women you will see here tonight are issuing a challenge to the status
quo. We have seen what this society has to offer us and we say, "No thanks."
Instead, we want to create our own society - a society defined not by money
and products, but by the transformative power of words.  For it was William
Burroughs who said, "The word's the thing, boys," and we believe he was
right. Nothing else matters.  Words are our currency, the Daily Bread by
which we live. Poetry is our raison d'etre, the only meaning in an
increasingly meaningless world. Poetry is the music that wakes us up each
morning, the lullaby which soothes us to sleep each night. You may take your
broadband, your SUVs, your triple lattes, your stock options - we have no
need for them. We have poetry.  And so, I introduce to you our first poet -
Father Jewish Farrakhan!

(To scattered applause, Jewish Farrakhan walks onstage, holding a notepad)

FATHER JEWISH FARRAKHAN:
This is called "Spearing Britney." (Begins reading from notebook)

    They say you're saving yourself
    But for whom?
    You've already sold yourself to Mickey Mouse and Pepsi,
    So why not rent yourself out to 'Nsync for a night and make it official?
    Or better yet, come visit Father Jewish Farrakhan in the rectory.
    (Begins gesticulating like a rapper and badly attempting to preach like a
Black  Southern baptist)
    You'll forget alllll about losing that Grammy
    When the Father slides up in you with his jammy,
    I'll bless you, sister, for you have sinned,
    You're a corporate whore, but not beyond redemption
    Sellouts go to Hell, but I can give you an exemption,
    I'll bless you with a soul kiss that'll exorcise Satan
    He don't stand a chance against an old devil like me!
    And then I'll ask you to confess your sins,
    All of them,
    Every dirty little secret you can't tell Glamour magazine,
    Until your conscience and soul are clean
    And then, it's Penance Time!
    Drop those Minnie Mouse panties,
    And let your host consecrate you….
(Walks offstage to scattered applause)

DOT CON:
Thank you, Father Farrakhan. This next guy has been following hip-hop since
the days of Boogie Down Productions and The Jungle Brothers. Let's show some
love to MC Jarvis!
(MC JARVIS saunters out on stage).
MC JARVIS:
Yo, yo, yo! I'm here to tell you about my 'hood, a place that doesn't get
nearly the props that it should. So everybody get up on your feet, get your
butts off the seats, and now give me a beat!
(The crowd begin clapping a basic "one-two" beat; unfortunately, it's not
basic enough for folks to realize that they're not necessarily clapping in
time with everyone else).
LYRICS TO "YORKVILLE"
    Born and bred on the Upper East Side
    Many a night I sat up and cried
    As I looked out my window at folks in despair
    'Cause they couldn't get a substitute for their au pair
    They were going to the Hamptons and leaving the kids
        But now those plans have just hit the skids
    So they stay in the city but the streets are mean
    Newspaper vendors say "Buy a magazine,
        Or scram!
    This ain't no damn library!"
    Ask 'em for change? That's committing hari-kari!
    Dodging delivery men on bikes
    Weekend punks with their hair in spikes,
    Yikes! Things can get pretty strange,
    Yorkville ain't no home on the range
    Tragedy strikes on a daily basis,
    "Details" out of stock, no parking spaces,
    And fuck statistics, the crime is ballistic,
    Rare bookstores selling bootleg triptychs,
    Retailers sabotage competitors' brands,
    Dishwashers piss and don't wash their hands,
    Ask the deli man, "Why the high prices?"
    Your next hero may contain some surprises,
    Or you may be cursed in a foreign tongue
    And not realize it til the damage is done,
    And you've lost your home and your kids and your wife,
    It don't seem fair, but hey, that's life
    On the mean old streets of Yorkville,
    That's my hood, G!
    You best come correctly,
    You come here starting that rigamarole,
    And my homegirls on the neighborhood watch patrol
]    Will report your ass to the boys in blue,
    We don't fuck around on York Avenue!
(MC JARVIS pumps the fist holding his mike, and starts to walk off the stage
to wild applause. He then turns around and says:)
I just want to give a shout-out to my boys up in Yorkville: Travis, Sidney
and Cormac. Also the crew down at Stuyvesant High, and the fine young ladies
at the Yorkville Public Library! And to the punks from Carnegie Hill: don't
be coming across 72nd Street, 'cause we're gonna wax your ass!
(Walks off stage; several audience members leave, terrified).

DOT CON:
This next poet needs no introduction. He is…unforgettable. Ladies and
gentlemen, Arthur Baxter!
(ARTHUR BAXTER walks out onstage)
ARTHUR BAXTER:
I know a lot of you young people find it hard to believe, but there was a
time when I was young too. And I did a lot of the same things you did. So I
thought I'd sing you a song about some of my favorite things.
"ARTHUR'S FAVORITE THINGS" (sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things")
    Picnicing weekends
    Inside the Sheep's Meadow,
    Cold coffee ice cream
    With cool amaretto,
    Warm summer breeze and
    The comfort it brings,
    These are a few of my favorite things,
    Mingus and Dinah and
    Dizzy Gillespie an'
    Spending the night with
    My friend who's a thespian,
    Binding his hands
    With the finest of strings,
    These are a few of my favorite things
    Me on the top and
    My friend on the bottom,
    I'm out of rubbers,
    But my bad boy's got 'em,
    Spanking him gently,
        Don't want it to sting,
        These are a few of my favorite things
        Fisting and fucking our way
        Through the weekend,
        I'd marry him,
        If he just weren't a vegan,
        Bondage and sex
         Are the past-times of kings
        And they're a few of our favorite things!
        When I'm horny,
        When I'm lonely,
        When I'm hard as a tree,
        I try not to think of my favorite things,
         'Cause now they just frustrate me!
(ARTHUR BAXTER walks off the stage to various rumblings of distaste)


DOT CON:
And now, we have a very special treat for you. Fresh from the greatest
literary tour of all-time, ladies and gentlemen, a man who needs no
introduction, the Hardest Working Man in Poetry: NEAL POLLACK!

(The crowd goes completely nuts. Feet stomp, hands clap, babies are
sacrificed, and flares go off. A bloody battle ensues between those favoring
POLLACK's pre-and-post-Nobel Prize work. In the midst of the chaos, a former
Vietcong refugee, still harboring a grudge over POLLACK's impassioned
dispatches from Saigon, steps forward and plugs POLLACK in the chest with a
single shot from a pistol of unidentified caliber. The crowd swiftly tears
the hapless would-be assassin limb from limb. An ambulance is summoned, but
as the paramedics try to force POLLACK onto the stretcher, he shoves them
away)

POLLACK:
Dammit, man, away with you! My audience needs me! (He staggers bravely to
the mike, blood pouring from his chest, and begins, rasping slightly):
Trying to silence me with a pistol!  The very idea!
(The crowd goes nuts again, applauding for ten minutes)
I knew that, if I was going to read here in New York City, a city that has
been so good to me over the years, I had to create something to show my
enormous love for this teeming metropolis.  Now, more than ever, New York
needs poetry. And I, as America's Greatest Living Poet, knew it was my duty
to create something…transcendent. Please accept this as my gift to you.

NEW YORK IS MY POEM
(He begins a bit weakly, somewhat distracted by the numbness spreading
through his torso)
What is a poem?
Some say it is a collection of carefully rhymed verses
Assembled on a page
In a book.
Others say a poem needn't rhyme, that it can simply be words
That reflect some essential truth
About nature, or God, or the human condition.
(The beauty of the words, and the audience's rapt, adoring attention, are
having a transformative effect. The next lines are spoken much more
emphatically)
But I, (laughing deeply),
Oh, I say the very sidewalk outside this café is a poem,
Breathing with the sweaty exhalations of people
Living, and loving, and working
To me, the sleek, silver subway train
That courses through dank and musky passages
Underground
Is as erotic as any sonnet
Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side are like free verse
Their winding unnumbered streets silently rebelling
Against any attempts at the imposition of structure
Oh, Ludlow Street, Ginsberg himself might have dreamed you up!
I see the Statue of Liberty and I am reminded
That New York is America,
Home to millions of swarthy strivers
Seeking the same rewards and
Pursuing the same dreams
That lured their ancestors,
And have now lured them to this
Island in the Hudson,
Yea, New York is America,
And what is America
If not the greatest poem ever written?
Thus, if New York is America,
And America is the greatest poem ever written,
New York is a stanza in this greatest poem.
Its people are the commas;
Its brownstones and towers, the exclamation points;
Its bridges, the hyphens.
From high atop the Empire State Building,
I gaze out at endless miles of inspiration,
A vast labyrinthine organism embracing multitudes
(POLLACK hacks violently)
A muse on every corner,
A haiku on every street,
And I truly think that I did never see
A poem grand as NYC.
(POLLACK forces out these final words, clutching his chest, and then
collapses to the floor of the stage. A scream is heard in the audience, then
weeping. It is plain to see, even from the rear of the café, that NEAL
POLLACK, America's Greatest Living Poet, has stopped breathing. DOT-CON,
sobbing, steps to the mike)
DOT CON:
Bless you, NEAL. Bless you for everything you did for me over the years. All
the selfless, little acts of kindness you showed me, without ever expecting
repayment or acknowledgement. For all the orphans you raised, all the widows
you comforted, all the lonely-hearted virgins you introduced to the delights
of the flesh (and the heart)…for all the charities you single-handedly
rendered obsolete through the offering of your time and money…for all the
near-disasters you helped avert through-out this troubled world: the
Barbadian Uprising; the Laotian Rebellion; the Canadian Misunderstanding…For
all this, and so much more, we thank you, and will never forget you.
(The crowd somberly streams out into the streets, aware that, yet again,
right here in New York City, the world has changed)

THE END

BACK TO TOP

A SEASON ON THE BRINK
By Elizabeth Miller, Ph.D.

The year was 1985.  I was a junior at Rutherford B. Hayes High
School in Dayton, Ohio.  We were a small, forgettable school, not unlike our namesake, the small, forgettable 19th President of the United States, he himself a native of Ohio.

I was the second-string forward on the girl's basketball team.  It had been a brutal year for our team, what with Cindy Pickle, our spritely star forward, being forced to leave school, thus basketball, indefinitely, mostly due to a rather persistent bout with mono; and Frida Sockeye, our best point guard, relegated to the bench for kicking Cindy's ass when she figured out how her boyfriend mysteriously and suddenly came down with a
wicked bad case of mono of his own.

Neal Pollack was our new basketball coach.  A young man new to the world of competitive high school sports, Neal--I mean, Mr. Pollack--had been handed the task of coaching our team after our previous coach, the handsome Burt Reynolds look-alike Mr. Frank, very mysteriously and suddenly came down with a wicked bad case of mono.

Our team was a handful, to say the least.  We were out of shape, what with our initial reluctance to resume basketball practice due to all the cases of mono that seemed to be going around, and our spirits had been broken, now that we knew our time off the court had seriously effected our chances of making it to the state finals.

But Mr. Pollack, well, he saw things differently.  What we viewed as setbacks he looked at as challenges and goals to shoot for, so to speak.  He lit a fire under us, lecturing us on the importance of hard work, playing as a team, and never giving up.  He even helped us out with some of our more overlooked complaints, such as our tendency to get overheated in the middle of a game.  Mr. Pollack ordered us a brand new batch of basketball uniforms, complere with super short, hot pants-like bottoms that proved to be far more comfortable and provided us with much more ventilation during our active games.

Before long we were unstoppable.  Once we got back into the spirit of basketball we were winning every game we played.  Marilyn Artsmith's guarding was phenominal.  Vickie Stretfield learned the time sensitive art of "driving the lane."  And me, well, my shooting percentage improved from a mere 32% to a whopping 75% all in a few weeks (it must have been all those one-on-one sessions I had with Mr. Pollack when the rest of the girls went home after practice).

The winning was glorious, mind blowingly wonderful.  We approached the end of the season like voracious lions at a fresh kill, looking--no, begging for our chance at state.  And then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended.

One cold winter evening Mr. Pollack didn't show up for practice, and after that he never showed up again.  Our hearts broken, we chalked it up as something we girls had done to drive him away.  It was only later, after the interrogations and the repeated "questionings of conduct," that we found out the truth.  Mr. Pollack had been forced to leave the season prematurely, due to a rather mysterious and sudden onset of a wicked bad case of mono.

I haven't seen Mr. Pollack since. 17 years it's been. But how I long to once again be reunited with the man who taught me the true meaning of the word "lay-up," the man who imparted upon me the spirit to never give up, never get tired, and if I do, to remember that there is always a solution to be found in wearing shorter clothing. You are my hero, Neal Pollack.

BACK TO TOP

AFTERNOONS WITH NEALIE
By Doug Finch, President of the Neal Pollack Fan Club

I remember as a high school kid when Neal Pollack came to my school, how all the English teachers made such a big deal over him. He talked to my journalism class. We were supposed to be honored, I think, as he did an hour or so on sock puppets and Chinese finger cuffs before offering us some pearl of wisdom about what it takes to be a world class reporter. Big deal.

Anyway, when the vice principal caught him in the boiler room with the captain of the cheerleading squad all hell broke loose, until he agreed to teach my class for a semester.

Well, the bon vivant Pollack really knuckled down for a while, teaching us some of the basics like: the finer points of checkbook journalism, creative fact invention, getting street cred through intimidation, and his specialty, blackmail, "journalistic tool or a one way ticket to easy street?"

Those were the Eisenhower years and there weren't a lot of big stories to cover. Still, Pollack knew where the action was and took us on illuminating field trips to hotspots like Times Square. My breakthrough article, "Street Of 1,000 Diseases" grew out of that trip. And it was in Greenwich Village where Pollack mugged a poet in the morning and in the afternoon interviewed the same guy for an article about street violence. This oft-practiced journalistic technique is today known as "getting Pollacked", after the man who pioneered it. I am proud to say I was there at its birth.

But perhaps the high point of the semester was when he brought in his friend Joe McCarthy, who fingerprinted us all and had us fill out a bunch of forms, none of which, oddly, I can remember in the slightest. My classmates had no memory of this either, and I only hope that the prolific Mr. Pollack will someday write about the event so I can discover what the hell happened that day.

Perhaps he will in the third edition of The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature? Some people are getting excited about the satire in the current second edition, for which Pollack is now touring. Others like the sex, double entendres and innuendo that populate its pages. So I ask, who wrote this book a "satirist" or a "satyrist"? I guess we each have to look inside ourselves to answer that question according to our own souls, or perversions, as the case may be.

I remember my own Wally Trumbull (Pollack's long lost love), happily for me, a female version. We'd hold each other close and in paroxysms of hilarity, while reading from John Lennon's "In His Own Write". Mr. Pollack might not enjoy this comparison, being a Stones and not a Beatles man. Still, in deference to his standing in the world of journalism, I don't believe the rumors of the existence of the Neal Pollack/Mark David Chapman correspondence, said to prove beyond a doubt that...But I digress.

Whatever, TNPAOAL is a talisman of mighty literary power, and very possibly the best bookish chick magnet since the novelization of the movie "The Graduate". Or as Neal, resplendent in madras Bermuda shorts, penny loafers and a "Neal Pollack For President" tee shirt, asked aloud at a beer bash at my fraternity house in 1956, "Lit and chicks, what more do you need?"

Greeted by silence, he looked up from the floor at our quizzical, anticipatory faces and came back, if only temporarily, to his senses. "Oh yeah, and beer!" he exclaimed, hoisting to his lips a sloshing manly tankard he had personally fashioned from a buffalo head and the hoof of an ass.

It was another valuable lesson from the mighty Mr. Pollack.

BACK TO TOP

INTERVIEW WITH NEAL POLLACK, ADULT FILM STAR
By John Bryant, MFA

Bryant: Today we have the honor of visiting with acclaimed first-time director,

Neal Pollack.

Bryant: Neal, your film, "Well Hung Jury" is one of the first adult films to have mainstream success. How do you account for this?

Pollack: I think there are two reasons for the success of my film. First, it has a story ripped from today's headlines. It describes a hot young trophy wife who has killed her rich decrepit husband in order to get his cash. Then, when charged with murder, she goes on a sexual rampage in order to win the jury to her side. Secondly, we decided to invest in special effects like costumes, make-up, and adequate sound equipment. The level of quality this film sustains through its 57 minutes is head and shoulders above any other adult film ever made.

Bryant: The added touches are definitely appreciated. But the special effects cannot account for the way that "Well Hung Jury" appeals not only to men, but unlike many adult films, also to women. Why do you think this is?

Pollack: Well women love the film because the main character, Titsanass Jones is a strong woman who knows what she wants and is not afraid to go out and get it. She uses her sexuality to conquer the men that had once confined her. Truly, she is what every woman secretly wants to be. And men like the film because we were especially heavy on the blowjobs.

Bryant: that aspect of the film was highly appreciated. And let me say that I am not the only person honestly appreciating this film. The reviews are amazing, even by reputable mainstream media sources. Just to rattle off a few: The New York Times raves, "'Well Hung Jury' is spanktastic!" Ebert and Roeper, "We give 'Well Hung Jury' two massive erections. Two massive erections way up!" The Wall Street journal says, "'Well Hung Jury' is a treat for the genitals. If you go out and masturbate to one movie this year, make it 'Well hung Jury'!" Even the Christian Science Monitor raves, "The eleventh commandment: Go see 'Well Hung Jury'!" How do you keep the reviews from going to your head?

Pollack: I am still getting used to the positive reviews. It has been a sudden, but very welcome change in my life.

Bryant: How true. Things weren't always so good for you. Before 'Well Hung Jury', you were a B adult movie actor that went by the name, "Henry Lickinger". While your list of adult movies was quite long, including such forgetable films as, "Black Hole", "Wild Sorority Nuns on Spring Break 12", and the gay porno, "Buttman and Bobbin: The Colon Crusaders", you were more famous for your strangely ill-formed genitals than anything else. Why originally did you get into adult films, and why did you continue to be in them, even though your attempts at success were always foiled?

Pollack: When I was 9 years old, I decided to get into adult films. It actually was a decision I made to get revenge on my parents. And I stayed with the industry because my urge for revenge was just that deep-seated. Bryant: I had no idea... What was it that inspired so much deep seated hatred for your parents? Pollack: All throughout childhood, I wanted a beebee gun. And they wouldn't give it to me, those bastards. They said it would make me grow up into a violent and disgusting person. All because of a beebee gun. Well who's got the last laugh now?

Bryant: Indeed. So why did you want to move into directing? Pollack: There were really two reasons that I wanted to get into directing. Initially I was tired of being controlled by someone so insulated from the process of being in an adult film. Most of the young directors these days are college boys from Harvard that have no idea of what its like to be in the pit. Frankly, I just grew tired of answering to some egghead film theory student. When he or she commanded me to ejaculate, I just couldn't feel it. Then when I began to ponder the possibility of becoming a director, I realized that I had the necessary artistic vision. When one sets up a scene, he needs to fully comprehend how all the ejaculations will play out--to be able to first visualize and then successfully orchestrate the many ejaculations. It really, is a strange mix of choreography and the conducting of a symphony orchestra, especially in a "gang-bang" scene.

Bryant: You certainly do have a way with ejaculations. You make that especially clear in "Well Hung Jury" during the scene with 6 people, a donkey and a bowling ball. I don't want to give it away, so I won't describe it any further, but your artistic vision is extremely clear in the scene with 6 people, a donkey and a bowling ball. Enough about the past though, what is in Neal Pollack' future?

Pollack: I will continue directing and acting. You might have noticed me as Juror Number Seven in "Well Hung Jury". I also have a project involving Julie Andrews coming up, though that is very hush hush. And I am doing a sequel to "Well Hung Jury" entitled, "Members of the Jury".

Bryant: Well, Neal, thank you for being so generous with your time. I will forever cherish this memory. I'll end this interview with the words of "Inside the Actor's Studio"'s James Lipton. He referred to Neal Pollack as, "The greatest human that has roamed God's green earth in the history of mankind." While that praise might be going slightly overboard, I would definitely say that Neal Pollack is the greatest man in the last 150 to 200 years.

BACK TO TOP

LOVING NEAL POLLACK
by Eric Williams, Ph.D.

You have...ELEVEN...new messages. Message...ONE

Hi, um, Eric? This is Neal. You know, *Neal*. It's two-thirty in the morning. I'm at the diner down the street. I stopped by your apartment but you weren't there, I guess. I tried tapping on your door with the heel of my Sketcher for fifteen or twenty minutes but no one answered. Heh. So, how are things? I'd really like to see you tonight, if that's okay. I know it's unexpected, with my living seven hundred miles away. But I happened to be in town and thought I'd say hi. So, um, hi! Hope you stop by. I'll be the guy in the baseball cap with the patty melt and butterscotch shake.

Message...TWO:

Hi Eric, it's Neal. I'm sorry for calling again so soon, but I had an idea. I thought that maybe we could go out tomorrow, to a movie. There's an Olsen Twins double feature at the State. That should be good for some laughs, right? We used to have so much fun going to children's movies and ridiculing them mercilessly, then ridiculing the children, who always started crying, then ridiculing the parents, who always hissed *monsters!* at us. We had some good times, Eric. I haven't forgotten. I hope you haven't, either. Well, goodnight.

Message...THREE:

Hi Eric, it's three in the morning now and I'm still waiting. Not *waiting*, just sort of hanging out and really, really hoping that you show up. I didn't tell you this before, but there's something I'd like to talk about with you. It's sort of personal... I can't get into it now. There are people around. What kind of people hang out at diners at three in the morning, anway? Stoners? Losers? Emotionally disturbed wanderers without hope and with no place to go? Hookers, probably. Maybe I'll buy a hooker tonight. I'm kidding! But I am kind of lonely. Not really. Just a little. I could use a friend. I hope it's okay to say that. I know I can trust you with my feelings. I'm grateful for our friendship, have I ever told you that? Well, I have to go. I won't call again. Sweet dreams.

Message...FOUR:

Eric, it's three fifteen. I was almost ready to leave but then I remembered a story that I wanted to tell you. And since you've decided to ditch me, ha ha, I'll leave it on your machine. I was walking down the street yesterday and this lady, an *elderly* lady, stopped to ask me if I was famous. She recognized me! She was covered in liver spots and had a, what do you call those, like a scarf that old ladies like to tie around their heads really tight? A babushka? Anyway, she asks me my name. And you know what I said? Tom Wolfe! And she believed me! Well, I think she believed me. She just sort of nodded and smiled pleasantly like she might not know who Tom Wolfe is. But everyone knows who Tom Wolfe is, right? Anyway, ta da, that's my story. Life's weird, isn't it? And full of old, dumb bitches.

Message...FIVE:

Hi, it's quarter to four. Did you know they stop selling beer at 2am here? Luckily, I always keep a trusty flask filled with Schnapps, Peppermint Schnapps, to keep me company. Tee hee. I'm a little tipsy. That's ok, right? We're old friends. We've been tipsy together. More than tipsy. Remember the time we got blind drunk and set fire to the library? Or was that the first time we experimented sexually? Anyway, I'm on my way and just wanted to say that Peppermint Schnapps reminds me of you: it's sweet and intoxicating. Unlike you, it's *here*. I usually don't drink alone, by the way. But tonight is different. I'm celebrating. Cheers!

Message...SIX:

Yo, man, it's four something. I feel great! You wouldn't believe the personal breakthrough I've had since I last called! It's like, I just looked at the world, but kind of in a detached way, like a Zen way, and I realized that I have no need to be unhappy. I've been reading Alan Watts and it's helping me not to feel so sad as usual. Not that I'm usually sad! I'm usually happy! But everyone has a down day now and then. A day when you don't want to get out of bed. Or can't. A day filled with gray skies and niggling doubts about one's sanity. Nothing major, just little doubts about my ability to keep going through the motions of my life. When you're lonely. Especially when you're lonely. But I feel great tonight! You know? It's all about the moment, moment to moment, day by day. One day at a time. I'll drink to that.

Message...SEVEN:

Hi Erin. I mean Eric. Sorry. I was just calling to apologize. I feel like an idiot. I *am* an idiot. I can't believe that I'm doing this again. I hope you understand. You're cool that way. That's why I like you, old buddy. That's why I love you. That's why I think about you sometimes while masturbating with Wonder Bread bag tied loosely around my head. Shit, I didn't mean to say that. I don't do that. I was just kidding. Kind of. God, I hate myself. I hate my life. I'm a shitty writer and everyone knows it. I'm just a little tired. I'm just a little depressed. I just a little drunk and nude from the waist down. I can't remember where I left my jeans. I think I'm going to start crying. Jesus, just *saying* that made me start crying. It's no big deal. I can deal with this. You're not home. Or your listening to all of this and not doing anything. Or laughing. You're probably laughing. I don't blame you.

Message...EIGHT:

Dude, do you know where I can score some coke? Call me.

Message...NINE:

Erish, it's Neal. I just wanted to say *fuck you* before I left. That's right, FUCK YOU. Ten four *that*, good buddy? I don't know why I ever put up with your crap for so long. I *give* and *give* and *give* and get *nothing* in return. I'm sick of your selfish ass. I'm sick of your ability to reach in, just *reach into me* and stir up these emotions without giving a damn about how it feels. Do you hear me? I know you do. You're just too scared to acknowledge it. Well, I just want you too know that, despite your plan to ruin me spiritually, to eat me up and shit me out on the sidewalk and leave me there to be sniffed by the dogs, I'm stronger for all your manipulation. That's right. I'm a better person, 'cause I can look inside and know, know that no matter how desperate I get, no matter how much I plagiarize, no matter how many underage girls I impregnate then threaten with physical harm that I'll never be *you*, you selfish cunt. GOOD.BYE.

Message...TEN:

Hi Enron. Are you there? Are you list-en-ing? I'm just calling to say that I've been *so silly*. You know that I didn't mean those things I said. I couldn't if I wanted to. My god, this ecstasy is amazing. You know that I still love you, sweetie. You know that I still find you attractive. You know that I'm literally stroking my huge, throbbing cock at this payphone at Meijers and dreaming about those soft lips of yours. Just swallowing it all. Mmmm hmmmmm. Baby I'm'a need you. I'm just pulling my ass cheeks apart reeaaalllll sllllooowwww and stroking my uuuuuuuuhhhhhhnnnnnggggg [muffled] I will take it all, daddy, I'm'a promise...WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT, LADY? YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU! I WILL KILL YOU! JUST KEEP MOVING AND TAKE THE BRAT WITH YOU! WHAT? NO SPEAK-A DE ENGLISH? WHY...[scuffling, yelling, sirens]

Message...ELEVEN:

Hello? My name is Neal Pollack and I'm hoping to reach an Eric Williams. I know this sounds strange and I apologize profusely. This morning I woke up with a terrible headache, naked, in prison, with a piece of paper with this name and this number on it. I'm just at a loss. Last night I got a little drunk and lost track of myself. I don't have any family here, and no friends... except for one, if you'd be willing! Anyway, I know this sounds bizarre and I'm sorry. I hope you'll find it in your heart to help me, whenever you get home. I'm a writer, by the way; maybe you've heard of me. Your name sounds familiar...I know this sounds crazy. Wait! We met last night at my book signing! Well, mystery solved! By the way, what did you think?

BACK TO TOP

MIDNIGHT
By Steve Heimhoff, PDA

I awake in a cold sweat. Just had a dream-- a horrible dream. Slimy things chasing me -- body snatchers -- worms. Tachycardia. Try to calm down, center. Still the mind...breath slowly, deeply. The fear will pass. Ahh, that's better. Roll over on my side-- what's this? Finger grazes against something -- something THAT SHOULDN'T BE THERE. Soft...moist...rubbery. I bolt up -- switch on old Fred Flintstone nightlight --

AAIIIEEEEEE!

The horror! The horror! It's (I can barely utter the words): NEAL POLLACK!

I know it's him because the other day when I did a Google search on "bestiality" I accidentally stumbled on his photo -- as if there are really any "accidents" when it comes to these things. Revolted, I bolted -- but not before that image was seared into my brain.

And now here he is in my bed!

How can this be? I am obviously still dreaming. Yes, a waking dream ... it must have been those damned tacos. Unsettling, but, on reflection, not really frightening. His bloated body seems harmless enough. I could destroy him easily -- one rock hand to the face, a chop to the Adam's apple. Let me count the ways. His belly rises and falls with his breath, a tide of cellulite. I lean on one arm and watch him. He is so oblivious. This raises all sorts of possibilities. I lift the sheet and peek underneath. He is well-endowed. It nests there between his pudgy thighs like a leathery reptile, one crafty red eye peering balefully out through a thick wad of foreskin. Slowly, my hand creeps toward the thing. My hand is a spider. I extend a finger. It touches the skin. Then a second finger. Now I have the thing in my fist. I give it a little squeeze. The Pollack stirs, moans, but does not awaken. A second squeeze, and the thing starts to swell. I can feel it fill up with blood and life, I can feel it pulse and stir. I begin to move my fist up and down and the damned thing explodes into full boner. It is enormous, huge. Such a pretty cock attached to such a revolting body. Such is life: Irony.

Now his hips begin to gyrate, but still he sleeps. He, too, is having a dream. I am in Neal Pollack's dream and he is in mine. I rub the thing faster. My fist begins to feel wet: Neal Pollack is issuing pre-cum by the bucket. Gobs and gobs of moist lubricated fluid. I never pre-cum like that. My admiration for Neal Pollack increases. This is a man of many talents.

Finally it is over. Neal Pollack's breathing slows down. With a groan, he turns on his side and rolls over, facing away from me, his buttocks mere inches from my own manhood. Should I? Could I? The thought is too revolting. I slip out of bed, go to the bathroom and wash my hands. I return: The bed is empty. There is no Neal Pollack, although there is a wet sticky spot on the bedsheet where the body of Neal Pollack had so recently lay. Or had it? There is no way for me to know, to understand-- as usual. Once again I can only shake my head and pray to my God to one of these days let me know what's happening. In the meanwhile, all I can do is sleep the sleep of the dead and wake up hoping tomorrow will come but not too soon.

BACK TO TOP

NEAL POLLACK: MY MIDGET FANTASY
By Demian Linn, Ph.D.

I am a fireman. With a 50-foot roll of extension hose slung over my shoulder, I kick down the door and step inside. Neal Pollack, the internationally known actor who earned $20 million and 30% of the gross for his work on Mission Impossible II, is curled up on the couch. He is looking up at me from the newspaper I know he was only pretending to read, because he has dyslexia.

"Where's the fire?" I ask, but before the words are even out of my mouth I know the answer. The fire is in Neal Pollack's smoldering blue eyes.

"Well, technically, there is no fire," he says, cocking his head and flashing me the smile that charmed both Cuba Gooding Jr. and RenŽe Zellweger in 1996's Jerry Maguire, "but it is extremely hot in here." Neal Pollack is taking off his shirt.

My fireman's jacket slips to the floor, exposing my rainbow suspenders, and then we are running, running like wild animals seeking the shelter that can only be found in each other's arms. It seems an eternity before we cover the short expanse of carpet separating the couch from the front door, but then we're locked in an embrace, spinning, spinning, spinning. "I loved you in Cocktail," I whisper into his hair, not even thinking about the almost infinite number of possible double entendres that Neal might fashion in reply.

But something isn't right. As the roaring in my ears subsides, I realize that Neal Pollack is roughly the same size and build as a young Mary Lou Retton. I can only hope he has similar leg strength. His eyeline clears my belt buckle by about four inches, tops. Neal Pollack is an amazingly, profoundly, shockingly short man.

I heft him once, twice, tossing him lightly into the air like a toddler. "Wheeeee!" I say.

________________________________

Later, we're having a magical day at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. Neal has already had a corn dog, an elephant ear, cotton candy, nachos, and is halfway through his second snow cone. He can really put it away. For a little guy.

Neal's wearing a denim-on-denim ensemble, also known as the New Jersey Tuxedo, with a Tigers baseball cap and mirrored shades. Some people recognize my Neal Pollack for the star that he is, but they can see he's just trying to have a day out as a regular Joe, and they give us our space.

We're standing in line for the Magnum XL-200, talking about our new life together, trying to decide whether to have a nice commitment ceremony in Oahu, or just say screw it and elope to Vermont.

We're at the front of the line and walking towards the ride when the ticket taker chimes in. "You've got to be 48 inches tall to ride the Magnum," he says, pointing at Neal. "Step up to the bar."

I think this is way out of line and I'm about to say so, but Neal puts his hand on my arm. "Don't," he says. He walks over to the bar, and clears it by a good three inches. The crowd murmurs its approval, and I think I hear some clapping towards the back. Neal's beaming, and turns to get on the ride.

"Not so fast little buddy," the ticket taker says. "Take those shoes off. And the hat." A hush falls over the crowd. Neal looks stricken, like he's just been punched in the gut. Slowly, he removes his cap and shoes, which are, admittedly, quite large.

Now he's under the bar. By how much? Two fingers? Two inches? It might as well be a foot.

Somewhere, a woman screams. Everyone is looking at my midget Neal Pollack.

BACK TO TOP

SILENCE OF THE LLAMAS
By S. Becket, Ph.D.

Prologue When I was 8 years old, I nearly burned my family's house down. I succeeded in gutting my own bedroom and would have died if not for the man my mother would forever call "The Angel." This is the story of that man and how I came to know him twice in my lifetime.

1. I grew up on a llama ranch in Peru. My father was an American ex-pat who came to the country seeking asylum, economic opportunity, and a nubile Peruvian bride whom he could bend to his will. He found all those things at my mother's ancestral homestead, La Tortuga Peluda. As he arrived at the estate that first sunny May morning, so the family legend goes, he found my mother, struggling up a small hill with a large pail of water that she had fetched from a nearby well. "Ahhh....senorita. Can you get me a pail of that agua while you're at it? Thanks, babe." He gave her a quick slap on the ass for emphasis before heading up the stairs and into the house where he helped himself to a tin of cookies he found in the cupboard.

They were married the next morning by a priest from a nearby village. The padre suffered a stroke near the end of the ceremony but was still able to choke out the bit about pronouncing them man and wife before slipping off to meet Jesus for brunch in the great beyond. It wasn't until many years later that my mother figured out my father wasn't really American singing sensation Frank Sinatra, as he had told her the night before their wedding, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.

So anyway, I'm 8 and I'm trying to smoke homemade cigarettes in my room while my father is tending the llamas. The cigarettes are made of coffee grounds and rolling papers and I am trying to figure out why they aren't working the same way cigarettes in the movies do. Somehow - my memories of how the fire started have become cloudy all these years later - a pile of loose kindling, which my father had stacked against the door and accidentally spilled lighter fluid onto that morning, ignited. I was trapped. The house was empty, as my mother had walked 35 miles into town to get a bottle of Dippity Doo hair gel for my father and he was, as I said before, in the field tending the llamas. My cries for help went unanswered as the room began to fill with smoke.

Then, like a breaking-news update interrupting your regularly scheduled programming, my window flew open and a man in a long black trench coat crawled inside. He was a bit thick around the middle, but had the most beautiful patch of facial hair I'd ever seen. He tossed me out the window into a flowerbed and proceeded to stomp the fire out with his bare feet. He jumped back out my window and disappeared.

It's a story that I've told many times, and often those to whom I told it would speculate on the man's identity. Was he just a peasant farmer who happened to be passing by? Was he truly an angel, sent from the heavens to rescue me? Was he one of the Peruvian pan-pipe players whom my father bred and trained in captivity for export to subway stations around the world? I assumed that his name would be known but to God, but I never forgot The Angel's face, his doughy cheeks, his small eyes. It was a face that haunted my dreams and when the llamas cried at night, I imagined it was his name they brayed. "Ahhhhh-dam," "Jaaaaayy-son," Maaaalcolm-Jaaamaaaaahhhhl."

2. Ten years passed. I ran away to America with a trio of pan-pipists and moved into a small apartment off Hollywood Boulevard. It was dark and cramped, but it was a new life, a new beginning. I began working at a co-operative feminist bookstore/juicebar on Melrose. With each new smoothie recipe I mastered, I felt more at home in my adopted country.

Then one hot fall day, J'ewlie, one of my co-workers, came rushing in.

"Oh my goddess, you'll never guess what happened! Neal Pollack, the greatest living American writer, is on a book tour! And he wants to do a reading here!"

"You want to let some man penetrate our safe-space, our womb of comfort and compassion?" asked Petrisha, who was restocking the shelves with copies of The Vagina Monologues. "Why don't you just overturn Roe vs. Wade while you're at it!"

"But Petrisha, you don't understand!" J'ewlie cried. "Not only is Neal Pollack the greatest living American writer, he's also a known friend to womynkind. His book, 'American Housewife, American Slave,' inspired Gloria Steinem. He's professor emeritus of womyn's studies at Wellesley." J'ewlie's eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed.

"Fuck that, J'ewlie. He's just some phallomaniacal son-of-a-patriarch who exploits womyn's causes to get pussy."

I thought J'ewlie was going to pass out. Her jaw flapped and her eyes wobbled around in their sockets as she struggled for words. She stammered for a few seconds before taking a deep breath, tilting her chin up and looking down her nose at Petrisha.

"He's coming and that's it," she said firmly. "I'll burn this store down before I let you stop me from letting the greatest living American writer give a reading here."

"You've got eggs, J'ewlie, you've got eggs." With that, Petrisha stomped off to the stock room and slammed the door.

3. The next night, the small store was packed with women who had come to get a glimpse of the famous American writer. Growing up in Peru, I had only heard his name mentioned a few times, yet still sensed his power and greatness. When I was very young, he was nominated and elected president of Peru in absentia (he declined to serve his term). Later, while I was still in my early teens, many of my friends became fans of his book "A Brief History of Peru," but at the time I was reading Barry Williams's "Growing Up Brady," and never got around to reading the Pollack book. I was eager to see what all the fuss was about.

When he walked into the shop, wearing a beret and a black trench coat, and I saw his face, I almost fainted. His was the face I had been wondering about for so many years, the flabby cheeks and bushy goatee that always found their way into my dreams and erotic fantasies. I had found The Angel.

Neal Pollack strode to the podium and addressed the audience.

"Don DeLillo and I were hanging out with Calista Flockhart, Rachel Leigh Cook and Dr. Dre in Quogue last month when he turns to me, cigar in one hand, Calista in the other, and says 'You know, I'm going to be chasing after you until my dying-fuckin'-day, Pollack. I'm always going to be second best. Jesus Christ.'"

"I had no choice but to agree. My newest book 'Kandy: An Exotic Dancer Story' was set for release in a few weeks and Michiko Kakutani had already written a 2000-word review, calling it 'a miracle of modern literature' and 'a moving fable, expertly told' and 'orgasmic.' Not that I had much to worry about: my last five books had each won a Pulitzer and my children's picture-book series about cloning and genetically-modified foods had won a special Caldecott medal."

I looked at the round little women in the audience, women who could only dream that they would someday be lifted by those chunky arms, touched by those meaty hands calloused from years of writing. I had lived the dream. I looked at Neal Pollack's lips, his nose, his dazzling little beard. They were exactly as I remembered them.

But I'm back in Peru, in the house where I grew up. As I stand at the window, looking across the parking lot at the glowing bookstore, I can't help thinking about The Angel, my pudgy little savior, the greatest living American writer.

As he spoke, the greatest living American writer glanced around the room. A glimmer of recognition passed over his face as our eyes locked. His gaze was like a laser beam aimed straight into my soul. The bond we formed a decade ago on a small Peruvian ranch now stretched invisibly across the length of the co-operative feminist bookstore. It was so strong and so firm, Karl Wallenda could have pedaled his whole family across it on a bicycle.

"I'm afraid I'll have to cut my remarks short tonight," he said, never blinking, never looking down. "I've just spotted an old friend in the audience."

But I'm back in Peru, in the house where I grew up. As I stand at the window, looking across the parking lot at the glowing bookstore, I can't help thinking about The Angel, my pudgy little savior, the greatest living American writer.

Wherever you are tonight, old friend, thank you.

BACK TO TOP

SUZANNE & NEAL
By Jay Hazen, MD

I crossed the prison yard slowly, doing my best to stay away from the walls or dark corners. My mascara was running like Texan border patrol, but I couldn't stop to fix it. It wasn't as if these brutes wanted me to look good for them, anyway. I kept my eyes down and looked away at a 45-degree angle whenever a Screw approached. If you look these prison guards in the eyes they can feel you questioning their sexuality, challenging their manhood, inviting them for a barebacked ride on a petting zoo pony.

As a bitch, I have a certain duty to the boys. I'm no sexual dynamo, but I care a little extra, and it shows. I know they appreciate it, too. Presently the Latinos have charge of me; Big Hector bought the rights to my puffy, white ass with what I was told was "good money, skank." I think I've done okay so far. The boys gave me Thursday off a while ago, plus no one has tried to stab me in ages.

Three years ago if I had been told I would be passed around like a poorly rolled joint by some swarthy, macho, olive-skinned lotharios, I would have thought whoever said so was crazy. Actually I would have feared for my small calf muscles first, but that thought would be an eventuality. And yet I'm here anyway, occasionally cursing the politics of the American judicial system. Mainly I curse Neal Pollack.

I had been an investigative journalist on the brink of my largest scoop to date, a scoop so large I might have had to pay an extra thirty cents for it, if news were ice cream. This was to make my career. With enough tanning oil and dimple implantation, I could wind up hosting a Hollywood-centered news magazine show on a basic cable network. That kind of career holds the possibility of working up to status as a correspondent for the E! Network, among other ambassadorships and dignitary titles.

My friend Suzanne was a beat police officer who told me about an undercover operation currently trying to net Waspy looking fellows in their cunning policey net. Suzanne was posing as a flamboyant prostitute with little fashion sense who stood with her legs four feet apart and offered herself simultaneously to several guys like an impish auctioneer. When she had verbal confirmations from all of them, the net, which was not really a net and actually a metaphor for her fellow officers, descended to nab any of the Johns they could.

Four times already a particularly deviant pervert had eluded the law's long arms by means of a crafty subterranean system of tunnels that he utilized as an escape route. He was increasingly dingy with every visit, owing to a lack of showering and perhaps, in hindsight, a deliberate attempt to muster an overpowering quantity of pheromones. She knew he was coming the third and fourth times based on the powerful man-stench he emitted alone. He ignored the other girls, having no doubt previously paid for their hollow loving in some seaside motel intended for sailors and priests. Suzanne was a new conquest, and he meant to have her, no matter how many attempts were made on his freedom by the encroaching and well-scrubbed local police.

On his fourth visit this man of all seasons shoved a grimy paw into Suzanne's purse in what she mistook as an attempt to blow her cover. There was much searching for a new metaphor as the locals convened around their comrade's molested handbag. Nothing was missing, though; as Suzanne told me later that night, he had stuffed a picture of a nude man not unlike himself he had printed from the Internet. When she colored the picture a bit to add layers of grease and dirt from the obvious rolling in his own feces he did with his free time, she saw the men to be identical. The website's address had printed with the picture: NealPollack.com! So, like many notables before him (Anne Bradstreet, I'm looking in you're direction), the greatest writer of our generation was a repressed sex fiend!

Suzanne recognized the name the same way anyone who knew the alphabet would: instantly, and with a shudder of reminiscence of his 1988 speech at a Michael Dukakis rally. She picked up her telephone and dialed the only literary friend a police officer truly has: the city's homicide reporter. Usually my work is found around page eight of the daily paper, and sometimes I get a contributing credit in the obituaries, but these accolades were not enough to slake my foolish thirst for the big story! Suzanne, like all people to whom I had told my life story while inebriated, knew this. Here was a celebrity, nay, a celebrity and a half walking our streets in an attempt to find streetwalkers. Such an act of desperation made me dismiss with na•ve confidence the accusation that Suzanne's suggestive and recurring solicitor was Neal "Hammer of Thor" Pollack.

Still, I had to know. The locals weren't doing their jobs in nabbing this titan of U.S. journalism; someone had to make the bust. Suzanne got me a motel room with a per-hour rate in a graffiti covered enclave of the epicenter of the city's crime. The room next door was also leased to her for the next expanse of twelve hours. She hiked her hot pants into the crack of her ass and walked onto the pavement with knee-high pleather boots.

Still, I had to know. The locals weren't doing their jobs in nabbing this titan of U.S. journalism; someone had to make the bust. Suzanne got me a motel room with a per-hour rate in a graffiti covered enclave of the epicenter of the city's crime. The room next door was also leased to her for the next expanse of twelve hours. She hiked her hot pants into the crack of her ass and walked onto the pavement with knee-high pleather boots.

I crouched behind my door like a tiger, hidden from their badinage as Suzanne calmly led the unsuspecting fly into the web we had so carefully woven. I waited three minutes, as planned, and grabbed the handle. Suzanne had locked it! Backing up to the banister, I heaved myself against the thin, HUD-supplied jamb and that entire section of the dry wall cascaded inward. On the plastic-covered bed was Suzanne, heaving with passion and longing as the greatest nudist writer of the age approached me, nude but not writing. His lip was curled under his elfish attempt at a beard.

I looked at Suzanne. She squinted and regarded me without regard at all. I took a picture with the camera around my neck. The motel owner was soon behind me with a shotgun demanding the $12.50 necessary for a new door. I was screaming to call the police; Suzanne disappeared behind the bed and returned with her badge, saying she was the police. She said she was trying to have consensual sex, free of charge, with the country's greatest literary persona. Too many syllables were flung at that poor double-barreled soul, so I just gave him a twenty and was left alone with the other two.

Neal said nothing in an effort to preserve his genius for a more useful time.

Suzanne was the first to talk. She cited destruction of private property and assault on herself and Neal. I said that no one had been assaulted, but she said no one had been battered: assault is the mere threat of physical harm, which I exuded the moment I set shoulder into the room. I tried to say this was prostitution. Neal was charged nothing and instead slithered his way into the room using his complex and layered brilliance. I was left trapped and dumb as some local police shuffled into the room, punched me in the kidneys, and took me with them for questioning. They left the remnants of the door propped against the remnants of the frame to give the happy couple some time alone.

I don't know how many days I have left; it's too depressing to count. I know I would have had more time had Neal Pollack wanted to waste his prosaic acumen on a police statement against me, but there were no affidavits issued from Olympus. While I should be oddly grateful, I'm also insulted at this insolence. There's nothing for me to point to now but a name that no one believes.

I can't really blame Suzanne because Big Hector has recently shown to me the undeniable appeal that such a dark and resigned stranger can offer. I can't blame myself either, though, because I was only trying to climb the mountain of the literary world the only way one can these days: by casting aspersions on my predecessors. So I have Neal Pollack to think of, Neal Pollack to blame as I nightly grind my teeth until my cellmate reminds me to shut my bitch mouth up before he uses his hairy Hispanic legs to test my head for ripeness. I always stop in mortal fear, so I'm not exactly sure what his meaning means, but it sounds unpleasant.

I'm left squeezing my eyes shut and trying to smother my curses into the flat, state-proffered pillow with which I'm provided. Damn you, Neal Pollack. This journalist will crawl out of this human toilet someday. And Big Hector's friends - provided they don't kill me first - will find you. I'd like to see your magic work against the Third World Mojo these hooligans possess. You've done a lot for Latin America, and I swear by the good people of Mary Kay products that Latin Americans will do a lot to you.

BACK TO TOP

TALK OF IMPORTANT THINGS ON A SUNNY SPRING DAY.
by Dan Winckler, MD

Neal Pollack and I sit on the porch, sipping lemonade. It is a sunny yet cool spring day. A leaf falls slowly, tumbling end over end in lazy loops, until coming to rest precisely equidistant between Neal and myself—-or, to be more exact, our chairs. We are sitting in markedly different poses—-he, a-sprawl in total relaxation, and I, leaning comfortably upon the arm of my wicker chair, my crossed legs inducing a sensation in my groin of equal parts snug pleasure and discomfort.

My mouth tastes like bullion,' Neal says. 'Spicy chicken bullion.' I do not reply. When the artist talks of his body—-any part of it—-a premature response can lead to a barrage of scathing insults or, worse, cold silence. Instead, I pick up the cardboard wrapper from his Cup o' Noodles, and commence a thoughtful survey of its nutritional facts.

Serving Size 1 container (64g).

Total Fat 14g...22% of the Daily Value. This stuff is bad for you.

47% of your Daily Value of Sodium? Neal really needs to watch what he eats. A family history of hypercholesterolemia is not to be trifled with.

Neal is staring off over the field, his jaw slack. It's a good thing his head is at an angle above the horizontal for otherwise I feel sure his linen shirt would be slowly dampening with the saliva he has forgotten to swallow. Again. Since he doesn't seem to be paying attention, I cautiously shift my position so I can see into his Cup o' Noodles. All of the noodles, chicken bits, and broth are gone but the peas, carrots, and corn remain. Tsk. I peruse the wrapper once more.

'Read it to me.'

Huh?

'Read me the ingredients.'

I can't.

'Why not?'

That part's torn off.

'No, it isn't.'

Yes, it is. The Nutrition Facts are there but the Ingredients part has been torn in half.'Then read me the half.'

ENRICHED FLOU.

'Er.'

REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONIT…

'Skip that one.'

ACID, close parens, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VE—

'Vegetable oil!' he cries triumphantly. 'Keep going.'

ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING, COLON...and then a C. Or a G.

Neal slumps in his chair and makes a sound halfway between a grunt and a belch.

Do you want me to keep going?

No response.

I now perceive that I am sitting next to an dangerously touchy Neal Pollack. I fold my hands in my lap and try not to fidget. In these moods, Neal does a devastating imitation of a Catholic school nun on the warpath. Any nearby object is liable to be transformed into a supple ruler for beating with. When it's spaghetti, it's funny. Not 2 feet beyond Neal is the woodpile I stacked yesterday. I begin to regret my eagerness.

There is one last desperate gambit I may try to get back in his good graces. It is, of course, a two-edged sword. If it backfires, in 40 seconds I'll be sprinting across the furrows of the field with a panting, red-faced, irate Neal Pollack right behind me, waving a bark-clad cudgel and making up swear words. Steeling myself with encouraging mantras (in my head, not out loud), I give it a shot.

40 seconds later I am indeed being chased by a sweaty and angry Neal Pollack. Neal does not like to be touched, yet sometimes a gentle and assured hand can almost magically calm him. It's like picking up a kitten by the scruff of the neck--done correctly, the cat goes limp in Momma's mouth. But if your hand is unsure, you may as well have stuck it in a bucket of glass.

I am wearing my Saucony long distance running shoes and sprinting easily; my stride is perfectly suited to the width of the furrows. Neal's filthy and compressed flip flops pop erratically as he lurches behind me, gasping and swearing. My feet are light but my heart is heavy. When Neal tires, then will begin a Wagnerian cycle of negotiation, recrimination, and bilious assault extending deep into the evening hours. If I am lucky, I will have placated him in time to watch the late night talk shows, his favorite daily activity, so that we may turn in on a good note. If not, I'll be spending another cold night in my hammock high in the oak tree.

BACK TO TOP

YOU CAN HAVE THE BITCH
By Peter McConville, VD

He came into her office with the recently acquired satire editor. It was the first week, second stop on his corporately sponsored book tour. You see, NP had sold his soul, and with it, his freedom. I am awaiting the day when I turn on the television to see that enormous mug looming high above the Rocky Mountains, tap in hand, licking his lips at the promise of glacial-cold domestic beer flowing freely from the pristine national resources which belong to us, the people. You're half Cheney, NP, and I know it. You're willing to sell out your countrymen and your children's children for a little profit and debauchery.

"Come out to my county house in East Hampton," he says to her. "I'm having a party. Still trying to cope with my newfound fame and fortune. I could really use someone to talk to."

To this day I don't think the DE ever sold out. Not only that, but I admire the decisions he's made in dealing with the press, demanding nothing more than to be recognized for face value. NP on the other hand has had his hair dyed, wears those stupid Lenny Kravitz shades, and lets lesbians dress him up in silk pinstripes. He's become the literary equivalent of a Barbie doll-the old one, with the ridiculous proportions. Big tits and flesh-toned panties. That's what he's become: an anatomical confusion with impossibly long legs.

"Do you like to ride horses? I have several. They are Arab. Simply the best. If you like, you may ride one. I have one in mind for you. He is big and powerful. And Jewish. If you come to my party, you may ride my big, powerful, Jewish horse."

I was sitting around with my hip young literati friends the other day, drinking a non-Starbucks latte and cleaning the lenses of my black-plastic framed glasses, when I made the following observation: "NP is a literary sham. Fart jokes enshrouded within a fairly decent liberal arts education and a thorough understanding of popular magazine history and culture. Further, I believe that his animosity toward Tina Brown, so cleverly displayed in his satirical pieces, is feigned. I contend that he only makes fun of her to get in the good graces of lesser publishing figures whom have not lived up to her judiciously high standards and feel they have been mistreated by her, subsequently manifesting their own inadequacies in a displaced rage. I also understand that he is currently looking to jump aboard whatever financially doomed project she undertakes next. Did you know he still has his first rejection letter from Granta? Bukowski is our true hero. Not that farce from Philadelphia.

My friends concurred. James took off his vintage corduroy jacket. "Well said. I only picked up his book following a favorable review in the Observer. Later I found out that the review was written by the son of a woman who had slept with NP's stepuncle one drunken night during spring break when they were in college. The nepotism of the NY literary scene is sickening."

"So true James. Hey, take that Strokes CD out. Put in the White Stripes."

You know I only say all that stuff cause I'm insecure, right? That's why my wife left me, taking Hercules with her. She left me all alone, with the cat. She didn't want the cat. Said I had defiled her during a promotional stunt. She just doesn't get me. So you'll come by? Great. Give me your address, I'll have my people send a car around.

I met him once-back in front of the KGB bar in the East Village. Before he sold out. I found him to be a decent enough guy. What he lacked in the looks department he seemed to make up for in wallowing self-pity. I remember feeling a little bit sorry for him, and I think that's how he finally stole my girlfriend's heart. We all want to care for the lame bird. Don't we?

BACK TO TOP

CUBA, COMMUNISM, AND COCAINE
By Ryan Chapman, Jay-Z

There are really only two reasons I did what I did: I had foolishly mixed tantric sex discipline with my cocaine habit, and soon found myself broke with and severely chafed; the authorities told me I was spending 10K a day on the good sugar and going through the female population of Boston too quickly for my penis to recuperate. The editor at the New York Times suggested I write on the migrating boats from Cuba washing up in the Florida Keys; after bedding her, I said no. She said she would pay me fifty thousand dollars (almost a week!- at least, a business week), and I slipped on my pants, checking for my passport. Two hours later I was airborne.

I've been to Cuba several times, and was on a first name basis with the customs officials. They wisked me through customs sans visa, coherent speech (I had brought my travel stash of cocaine), or shirt. After doing a few lines in Havana's city square and attempting to pick fights with a statue of Hemingway, I strolled to el norte, where my inflatable cruise liner awaited.

It only took a few minutes for the next raft of Cubans- twenty in a "max.capacity 8"- to recognize me. They addressed me as Rabid American God of Pen, and then all retrieved their favorite of my books from their meager belongings for autographs.

"Listen, hombres," I said, crouching down. They crouched too. "I must get to America. Can you help me?"

They offered me, rather confusingly, some wine and their most beautiful sixteen year old woman. After libations and coitus, I clarified that I wanted to join their rafting party. They welcomed me.

Day 1: I thought it would be a good idea to keep a log of our progress for prosperity and later publication rights. We have been adrift for approximately two hours, and already my body has suffered first-degree burns from the late afternoon sun. The women of the raft soothed my pain with a salve they insisted would help- it mostly consisted of rhythmic licking of the affected areas while singing Cuban music of the Ry Cooder tradition. The men asked me questions of my past, to which I responded with absurd lies. ("Do you really have a house on every continent?" "I do not.")

Day 2: The Cubans, to which I have given each their American names- Jose is now Guy, and Allejandro is now Benecio- have given me the rest of their food. It's been only six hours since I last ate, but it seems like an eternity. The great abyss of hunger, where I have visited several times since beginning my coke habit, has enveloped me yet again. I fear for tomorrow, as my stash is running low.

Day 3: Imoutofcoke Imoutofcoke Imoutofcoke fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCKFUCK!

Day 4: In the night I accidentally strangled all the men. I woke up to shrill screams and hand cramps. The women pleaded with me to rid the raft of the Ghost of Fidel, who was punishing them for desertion. I yelled expletives in French and they were contented. We tossed the bodies overboard, but not before stripping them and creating a shaded roof from their clothes.

I have had sex with every woman, in an attempt to console, except one. She is a lesbian and quite the equal in wit. We have had many enlightening discussions, and convinced a few of our raftmates to try bisexuality (I have informed them of the utter necessity for it in the United States.) Tonight we sleep soundly and naked.

Day 5: We're back in Cuba. We push off again, after stealing some food.

Day 6: I've eaten all the food, but the women do not seem to mind. One has starved to death. I eat her hindquarters not out of hunger but curiosity. Gamey and a little stringy.

Days 7-10: No sight of land, no news to report. Except I have killed and eaten another woman.

Day 11: there is unrest in the camp over my needless cannibalism. I quell their discord with a stirring speech on Communism and Hamburgers. They are grateful. I kill again and am satiated.

Day 14: America! I am saved. Unfortunately, only the lesbian survived the rest of the trip, and she has been deported. My arrival in Key West caused a media frenzy, and the INS soon found out about my friend's transport to the Great 48. I will miss her.

Day 15: Back in Boston, well paid and well-stocked. I actually gained a few pounds on the trip, but have contracted a few venereal diseases I've never seen before. Ah, Cuba. CubacubacubacubacubacubaCUBACUBACUBAFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

BACK TO TOP

HOW I LONG TO HOLD NEAL POLLACK AGAIN
By Sara

She watched him from the back of the bookstore. She situated herself between modern classics and Latin American lesbian feng shui enthusiast studies. He read to a bemused but largely disengaged crowd of hipsters and crumbly white-haired literary types intent on keeping up with the latest brilliant young authors.

She barely listened as he read. She was fixated on his eyes, which pierced her soul like ten thousand tiny daggers, of a size similar to the swords brandished by the Lilliputians. Oh, be my Gulliver, discover me, you brawny man-beast!, she willed Neal with her well-schooled but still virginal, fertile mind. He looked in her direction frequently. Sometimes she would look away bashfully, a coy schoolgirl. Others, she would suggestively caress the thick volume of early Byron limericks on the bargain table beside her. A bead of sweat appeared on his proud brow. She had him and she knew it.

Later, after they made love, tenderly yet not without some appropriate and politically correct bondage games-- Neal had asked her to ride him like a camel while singing Shakira songs (in Spanish, none of this English language crossover bullshit) and smacking his perfectly molded Apollo-like ass with her Urban Outfitters belt-- she smoked a cigarette. He licked his finger and painted her pale back with the ashes. He wrote Kilroy was here. And solved some simple algorithms to amuse himself while she napped post-coitally.

Finally he spoke: Gotta run, baby. I have an in-store in an hour. Call me! she cried, her voice trembling with emotion and the still-fresh passion of their lovemaking. They both knew he would not. Later, she would spend hours making him mix tapes, which she would never send.

BACK TO TOP

THE DIARY OF THE MAN WHO WROTE THE LETTER INVITING NEAL POLLACK TO STOP BY HIS HOME FOR A MESSAGE BECAUSE NEAL WAS HIS TYPE
By Rick Stoeckel, Ph.D

March 13, 2002:
Neal did not come over today. I suppose I should not be surprised because he's never come over to my home nor ever given me the slightest indication that he might. Still I'm surprised.

I recall when I was a little boy I used to get the same sort of anxious expectant feeling waiting for the mail to arrive at my house. I would wait for a precious letter addressed to me: I had a desire for something I could call my very own. However, I never received a single envelope or package until I was well into my teens. And by then, the postal service had lost its wonder.

So Neal didn't come over my house once again, and I felt just like my little boy self, clutching hopes that someone out in the vast world would have thought enough to make some connection with me. Oh Neal! Where are you?

March 14, 2002:
I know I need Neal in my life. I guess I've been stressed out recently because of my kids. They just don't understand me. I adopted them as a single parent. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not traditional. I love the kids though, and I think in the end that is all it really boils down to, loving them well. My eldest one though, her name is Katy, she has to give me lip over everything I do. I can't say a single word without her jumping on my back. "Don't watch TV at the dinner table," she tells me. "Why don't you pay the electricity bill?" she'll yell. I know Neal would understand me. He would get what I'm all about. I'm laid back, but I hold the ferocious potential to be a great parent.

March 15, 2002:
The damn lawnmower repairman has stalled me once again. Look I'm no mechanic, but I know replacing a lawnmower blade shouldn't take three weeks. If I see him I might cut him. Or at least no more free massages for the man. I think a lot of the time about maybe saving my massage powers up for Neal. So when he comes over he'll get my full abilities. Usually Katy will come in and see me in my whimsical state, and comment. "Hey dopey," she might say. "What did you take this time? Should I call a hotline or something?" God, I don't even know what she is talking about most of the time. Her insinuations are too complex for me, however I do believe Neal would understand them.

March 17, 2002:
Sorry I have neglected you diary. Neal has been on my mind for several days now. More so than usual. I had a disturbing dream where he was boxing a cactus. While this may seem like the kind of weird non sequitur imagery that is so popular with the young kids today, it got me quite angry because I demanded to understand the significance of the vision. I could not dismiss something so peculiar as nonsense. As a result, I struggled with the image until I finally resigned to the fact that it made absolutely no sense. I found myself struck with a sweet calm and silent delight once I accepted this notion. I knew Neal would have loved the paradoxical idea I had arrived at: From a complex something often may come a splendid nothing. Then I thought deeper and realized I had been wrong, the image of Neal boxing the cactus obviously meant Neal was super duper attracted to me and wanted to give his body to me; slightly flabby and hairy, just the way I like it. I figure maybe the boxing meant he wanted to be real sweaty when he came to me. And I don't know about the cactus.

March 18, 2002
On this day I have a daydream-one full of symbols I can recognize easily and feel joy in. In my reverie, Neal comes to my home early in the day, a sign that we are in a healthy relationship. He shows interest in getting to know my children, and I realize and am grateful that we can stand each other for an extended period of time, as many couples I know cannot do this. We go to a Boardwalk somewhere. Neal is shirtless, slightly flabby, and gloriously hairy. In my fantasy he carries a large boom box at his side, music pouring out blasting all other sound. What bravado! I walk beside him feeling invigorated by even the slightest excess of power I imagine dripping from the pours of his skin. People look on. They stare at us, marvel even. The sunshine fades and the day slips into the arms of a warm night, and I know we are headed back home to my place. A picture of anticipationÑme biting my own lip. Like my little boy self, waiting for the mail, I have a feeling that someone has taken notice of me and scribbled my name on an envelope, licked it, stamped it, and it will be mine to hold and to open. After the daydreaming ended I was left with a grand feeling that everything would work out. Happy endings usually come full circle.

March 19, 2002
Circularity is for wusses.
Neal where are you? I need you. My children need you. I told Katy today that her eyebrows looked very dark, and I mentioned that they made her look a little like Groucho Marx. She started kicking me. I thought she would stop eventually. She didn't. I thought Groucho Marx was funny. Hey, I still do. No amount of kicking can change that. But Neal, I need you and so does my family. Where are you Neal? Please come over. Neal? Please.

BACK TO TOP

NEAL POLLACK AND THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL
by Adam Sivits, Ph.D.

    As The Greatest Living Writer sat bloodied and tired in a jail cell like any other jail cell in this great country of ours, his hurried mind flexed and fluxed about why the fuck he was in this place.
    Did he dream that he pinned Alicia Silverstone down and told her to touch his "Mr. Goodbar"? Or did it really happen? He had seen her outside the pawn shop earlier that day. He remembered an empty bottle of Maker's Mark, but he couldn't remember when it was drank. Or how.
    Buouyed by these thoughts, at 5:47 a.m., he began to incessantly bounce his skull off of the concrete border that now made up his temporary home.
    Maybe it was because he didn't do anything wrong. Maybe it was because the cell smelled like stale rat piss. Or maybe it was because the old guy one cell over couldn't stop humming the theme from The Facts of Life. Either way, life really fuckin' sucked right now.
    You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have: the fact that Neal Pollack was rotting away because of a stuffed koala bear, a disgruntled Major League Baseball employee and a NAPA assembly-line worker with really, really good eyesight.

    Mordecai Brown's life was for shit. He was 49, divorced twice, and impotent. And if that wasn't bad enough, his daughter, Amanda, had just signed a record deal with Virgin Records.
    As is his custom on a Monday, Mordecai got up around 6:30 in the morning, did some sit-ups and push-ups (but not too many), showered, ate his usual breakfast of bagel-and-cream-cheese and hurried off to work.
    Mordecai worked for Major League Baseball as an authenticator. Basically, he sat in rooms and watched major leaguers sign, sign, sign, sign, sign a bunch of shit that guys who never played past high school bought with their kids' college fund so it could sit in their room for 20 years.
    For over 15 years, ever since the memorabilia craze took off, Mordecai lamented about how his professional existence could be reduced to a hologram one-half inch in diameter.
    He had hoped for a promotion long ago. He dreamed of working in the scheduling department, pouring over concert dates and worship promotions and high school championships. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to influence others.
    He wanted more goddam money.
    On this day, however, he would get what he wanted.

    Darrin Brodley was a simple man. He liked his job. He liked his wife. He liked Kool-Aid.
    But what he really liked - more than anything in the world, even more than re-runs of M*A*S*H - were his sports collectibles.
    He had autographed jerseys. Autographed balls. Autographed hats, bats and floor mats. (That last one from when Curt Gowdy went jogging by his house, and, well, you can probably imagine the rest.) He had programs, fliers, posters, pennants, pucks, sticks, socks, jocks and figurines.
    What was said before about the kids' college fund? Well, let's just say that in The Great Battle at Conception, there weren't enough guys fighting on poor Darrin's side.
    So Darrin bought. And he bought some more. He had rooms full of that shit. But what he bought on that Friday afternoon put them all to shame.

    Mordecai was riding the number six to work, going through some papers that he hadn't looked at over the weekend. A man from across the car saw the MLB logo on one of the memos and meandered over.
    "So, you work for major league baseball?" he asked, matter-of-factly.
    "Yes."
    "What do you do?"
    Mordecai, looking unpleasant, answered: "Well, if you must know, I work in the authenticity department."
    "What, like autographs and shit?"
    "Yeah, precisely. And shit."
    The man looked around the car as if someone was watching or listening. Nobody was even remotely interested in what these two yahoos had to say to one another.
    "You like that job?" the man asked, prodding his chin up in the air.
    "What do you care?" Mordecai said.
    "I don't, personally, but I got a friend who would. And he's got a whole bunch of friends who would care, too." He paused. "Funny, though. They's all gots the same name."
    "And what would that be?"
    "Ben Franklin."
    And with that the man the man gave him a card, turned around, and walked away.

    Darrin remembered when he was a young boy, six or seven, and going to see Stan Musial play. Boy, what a sight. Stan the Man hit more doubles that day than an alcoholic priest.
    He followed him the rest of his life, and Musial was by far Darrin's favorite player. He had everything a Musial fan could ever want - except an autographed ball.
    So, one day, he found it.
    He was walking through a memorabilia expo when he saw it. Man, it was pretty. Darrin shelled out some worthy clams, but it was his.
    Darrin brought it home. He looked at it, studied it, every nuance, every stitch.
    But something didn't feel right.
    That signature - the one he had seen hundreds of times before - looked, well, different.
    The official MLB merchandise logo and hologram were there, though. Could he be wrong? Could he?
    He decided to find out. He got the phone book, dialed some numbers and waited. Holy flabbergasting fetus did he wait.
    Eventually, however, he got through.

    Mordecai went to work that day, forgetting what happened on the train. He forgot about it Tuesday, too. But Wednesday - Wednesday was different.
    "Hello?" said a sexy voice on the other end.
    "Yes, um, I got this number, uh, from a uh, a guy on the -"
    "Do you have a pen?" she hissed.
    "Yes."
    "Write this address down."
    Two hours later he came upon an old, worn-down stone building, the facade crumbling as slowly and as inertly as Mordecai's withered exterior. He rang the buzzer, when to his amazement the door opened to reveal - no one.
    "Come in," said a female voice on an intercom, faintly resembling the one on the phone.
    He entered methodically, cautiously, but soon his fears were rendered obsolete. Once he got past the threshold, the place was flambouyantly chirpy, an up-beat version of the place Mordecai dreamed himself one day occupying.
    She introduced herself as Tasha and explained the premise for their moneymaking venture. While she was talking, Mordecai noticed out of the corner of his eye an elaborate computer setup with all kinds of lab-type instruments.
    What he failed to notice, however, was perched in a fake eucalyptus tree some three feet to his right.

    The FBI were at Darrin's house one day after he called. In his years of associating with autograph hounds and dealers, he had heard the stories. Not until now did he think they were true.
    Apparently, the FBI and Major League Baseball does not tolerate counterfeiters.
    The ball was confiscated and Darrin was told they would get back to him. All he had to do was sit and wait. Just wait.
    The ball was taken to a lab in Maryland where it was analyzed every which way but loose. They compared styles with a handwriting expert - they matched. They compared the ball with other types of autographed balls. They compared the stitching. They compared the ink.
    Aha! The ink!
    After computer analysis it was determined that this signature was done by a computer, because the pen strength was the same throughout the signature. When a human signs something, the pressure of the pen is stronger in some points than in others. When a computer signs, however, the pressure is the same throughout.
    This was a fake ball.
    It was rushed to forensics. Extensive dusting revealed two fingerprints. Results determined that one belonged to Darrin Brodley, who obviously didn't do it because he reported it, and the other belonged to a man known throughout the universe as The Greatest Living Writer.

    While Tasha showed Mordecai the intracacies of her work, he began to notice things: her supple breasts; the way her hair moved, almost like it danced for him; her shapely calves; her supple breasts; her thin but remarkably full lips; her supple breasts; the way she smelled like a fresh blanket; and her amazingly supple breasts.
    She had just picked up a newly signed ball to show to Mordecai when something incredible happened: movement!
    He grabbed her and began ripping off her clothes, throwing things this way and that. They tustled and rumbled around in a sweaty affair.
    During this they bumped the fake eucalyptus tree, sending the stuffed koala bear Tasha received as a "gift" three years ago sprawling to the floor, first bouncing off a plate of ink templates laying on the ground.
    The ball she had wished to show Mordecai, with a newly-inked "Stan Musial" on it, rolled ever gently into the waiting hands of the deceased mammal.
    On the side of the ball, opposite the autograph, could be seen a faint, albeit recognizable, fingerprint.

    Back at home, Neal Pollack, A.K.A. The Greatest Living Writer, sits in his upstate apartment, trying to think of something to write about.
    He's no longer in jail, having been set free after his whereabouts were vouched for by numerous people. It took a while, but the truth came to light.
    So now he tries to write, but he can't, so he turns on the television. He flips around (man, that Brooke Burke is soooo hot!) and finally lets it rest on the animal planet channel while he gets up to make a sandwich.
    In the kitchen it's hard to hear, which is too bad for Neal, because he missed an interesting fact, although he wouldn't have known its relevance.
    On the tv they say that while being sweet, adorable creatures and only eating eucalyptus leaves, koala bears have another interesting characteristic: their fingerprints are almost identical to a human's.

BACK TO TOP

THE PUG STORY
By Terrance Powers, JD

Jerry Rubbo snorted the cocaine off the back of his pasty fist.  He looked up at the ceiling, waiting impatiently for the powder to fall all the way back into the parts of his nostrils no human finger could ever reach.  Seconds passed before the rush hit, but to Jerry it felt like an entire week had gone by.  Still, when the sensation arrived, it once again managed to send his brain careening into burning fields of neural aggressiveness.

"Let's go, Hooch!" shouted Jerry, as if the dog at his feet had just moved across town.

"I can hear you, idiot," said the dog, your basic brown pug, except he could carry on a conversation in English, French, Chinese, and Esperanto, though the pug found that he was pretty much the only creature still into that last one.

"Where's the ring in this dump?" Jerry wailed, already feeling the sweet cocaine wave inside his skull beginning to dissipate and fall away.

"You just follow me, Jerry.  I know exactly where everything is, except for maybe your sense of decorum.  Snorting up like that, where anyone could see.  It's enough to make a dog vomit."

"Speaking of vomit, who are we fighting today?" asked Jerry.

"We aren't fighting anyone.  You are fighting a chap named Neal Polack,” replied the pug.

"He any good?"

"Well, that depends.  He's had 67 fights and he's never lost, not once.  Truly, just one man ever even managed to draw blood, and that's only because he worked part-time as a phlebotomist.  Tell me, would you say that qualifies as good?"

"Not one loss!  Who trains this guy?"

"Crazy Willie Spots."

"The Dalmatian?"

"Do you know anyone other than the Dalmatian who answers to that name?"

"Well, I once knew this kid back in middle school.  People used to call him Crazy Willy Spots.  Of course, his name was Willie Spots and he was nuts, that's for sure."

The Pug didn't say anything.  He just sat down and waited for Jerry’s arm to wrench backwards, signaling that the leash had pulled out to its full length.  When Jerry fulfilled his destiny, the lingering affects of the coke in his system encouraged the rest of him to begin to shout and snarl, while his fists took to beating against his chest.  Before long, Jerry began to resemble a silverback encountering a challenger to his title of group stud, the ape who’s in shape, the gorilla who will thrill ya – okay, that’s enough.  But, even the horniest of silverbacks knows to back down when he comes across an implacable pug, one that has taken three years of ballet.

"Don't piss me off, Jerry, because I will smack your bitch up, believe that!  And, if you think I'm bad, try stepping into the ring with Neal Pollock.  He makes me look like a soft pillow.  What’s more, he'll make your face look like an unsolved jigsaw puzzle; the kind that sits in an unopened box because putting the damn thing together is just a huge pain in the ass.  Is that what you want?  Is it?  Because it's damn well what you're going to get if you keep reminiscing about your schoolboy lovers!"

"What?!  Who told you that?  Was it Rick O’Shay?  Oh, that slimy bastard!  He promised he wouldn't say anything, that duplicitous bitch!"

"Duplicitous?  Well, well, listen to the genius.  Admits to a youthful indiscretion and suddenly he's Henry James.  Simmer down, Hank.  I'm a dog, for God’s sake!  Unless and until you arrange to have me neutered, or perhaps I mean spayed - honestly, the whole subject was so sickening to me, I never bothered to find out which procedure had my name on it; anyway, given the opportunity, I'm liable to hump the nearest recliner, providing nothing alive enters the room.  Translation: your secret is safe with me, so consider the entire matter dropped."

The pug's admission seemed to return some level of focus to Jerry's weary, drug-addled brain, a brain that had been subjected to several thousand blows in the last week alone, courtesy of Robby O’Doul, Danny O'Brien, Cliffy O'Shaughnessy, and Vicky O'Noagirlbeatme.  Jerry figured if he lost again, the pug would dump him for sure.  It's not like there weren't dozens of guys standing in line to take Jerry's place, he thought to himself.  Jerry had actually waited in several of those lines, mistaking them for queues to buy his drug of choice, the aforementioned coke, which was mentioned a few times before this last time.

After a while, Jerry would end up blacking out, and by the time he regained consciousness, the line would always be gone, as would his money and all his clothes.  Inevitably, however, the pug would always show up, shove a few twenties into Jerry’s dried-up mouth, toss a surprisingly nice robe over his head, and tell him to “get your [his] ass up before the cops get [got] here [there]!”  Jerry would do as he was told, even though he would rather have filed a report, at least once.  I mean, come on, he would say to himself, this is some weird stuff going on here, he would again say to himself.  That is, until he’d reach into the pocket of the robe and find some of that powder he loved more than every other powder, even the baby kind, which Jerry admitted was hard to beat since it smelled so nice.

“There he is, Jerry,” said the pug, pointing his…nail?  Okay, pointing his nail in the direction of a guy wearing a pair of boxer trunks, the same color as Jerry’s: blood red.  Oddly enough, this man was also under the influence of drugs.  Jerry and the pug could tell because the man was shooting heroin into his left eye.

“Him?!  The guy shooting smack into his peeper?” replied Jerry.

“Yes, that’s Neal Pollack, sure enough,” said the pug, sounding ominous and creepy, like an old man selling bait in some movie or television show about an old, wily, usually big bass.

“That’s it!  I quit, man!  No way am I trading punches with a psycho like that.  Look at him!  Now he’s eating a light bulb, placed delicately between two slices of bread.  And, is that, my God, it is – he’s drinking a can of Fresca!  Willie Spots isn’t the crazy one; he is…Well, Willie is crazy too, I guess, but not crazy, crazy…Well, maybe he is crazy, crazy too, but he’s not crazy, crazy, crazy.  Pollack is crazy, crazy, crazy, with a capital CRAZY!”

“You haven’t been reading that vocabulary book I gave you for Christmas, have you?  If you had, you’d maybe have realized that men, as a general rule, do not wear skirts, so will you take it off already, Jerry?  Really, take it off.  You look ridiculous.  And, while you’re at it, lose the shoes too.  I know it’s not Labor Day yet, but it’s never too early to put the white ones back in the box, as far as I’m concerned.  Honestly, have you got something against red pumps?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Jerry.  “I’m wearing trunks and boxing shoes”

“Yes, but you still don’t look the part, do you?  You’re flabby, you’re wired, and your hair’s a bloody mess!  You’re not a boxer; you’re a bum!  Not Pollack, though.  Look at him, he’s strung out, he’s wearing a baseball cap, looks like he hasn’t seen the light of day since we kicked off the new century!  You’re exact opposites, like Superman and Biz Markie!”

“Hey!  Just hold it right there,” said Jerry. “Nobody calls me Biz Markie and gets away with it; unless you were calling me Superman, in which case, thanks.”

 “That’s it, Jerry!  That’s the kind of venom I want you to spit inside the ropes!  You take it to Pollack like that, and he may just suffer his first loss, and then that stupid trainer of his will have to sniff MY butt for a change.  Now, get in there and open up a can of whip cream!”

“Whup ass.”

“Don’t sass me, lad.  If you have to sass anyone, sass Pollack.”

Jerry stepped up onto the apron, which is the matted area just outside the ropes of the ring, as well as an invaluable piece of clothing, most often worn in the kitchen or by hookers dressed up to look like sexy French maids.  It was just a matter of minutes before he had made his way onto the inner apron.  Pollack, noticing the show, pulled the nail he had hammered into the palm of his hand out of his hand, used it to pick the shards of glass from out between his teeth, and then stepped into the ring himself.

The two fighters began to circle around each other.  In this match, there would be no referee, owing to the fact that he was stuck in traffic.  As a result, the rules went out the window.  Yes, that window.

Pollack was the first to blink.  Jerry grinned a mischievous grin, not realizing that Pollack had something in his eye.  Sensing an opportunity, Jerry advanced toward Pollack, getting as far as a few measly inches away from Pollack’s chin.  Just as Jerry set his foot so that he could throw his trademark left hook, the one they called “the globetrotter”, presumably because it would send a man halfway across the planet without his feet even touching the ground; at least, figuratively it would – realistically, it was just his best punch in an arsenal of suspect punches and it had never even so much a knocked a guy down yet but they still felt they had to call it something; anyway, Jerry was about to throw a punch.

Just then, Pollack opened his eyes, glanced down at the flailing Jerry, and waited for the punch to arrive.  As he was chasing the white rabbit, Pollack quickly became convinced that the gloved fist was nothing more than a flying brown gopher.

“Gopher!” Pollack shouted, reaching up his own left hand and catching the gopher, uh, punch, in mid-air.  Jerry froze as if his body had just found itself alone atop a cold, snow-capped mountain.  Pollack then pulled Jerry’s glove off his fist and began to pet the glove.  Both the pug and the Dalmatian began furiously wagging their tails.  Wait, do pugs even have tails?  No matter, the point is, their butts were shaking to and fro.

“Neal, what the hell are you doing?” cried Crazy Willie.

Pollack said nothing, however.  And, just at that very moment, it happened.  Pollack, the undefeated, untested champion of the unregulated, unsanctioned World Boxing League, where drugs were so prevalent, it was easier to buy a narcotic eight ball than it was to buy an actual eight ball, pulled Jerry’s glove close to his bosom, and kissed it lightly on the part which Jerry had soaked in chloroform earlier in the day.  As far as Pollack was concerned, that glove was a gopher, just as surely as there’s absolutely nothing to do in Connecticut.

But, Connecticut aside, Pollack was kissing a glove, inhaling chloroform, and, finally, losing consciousness.  Almost as if by magic, the referee appeared inside the ring, apologizing and claiming “idiots can’t drive in rain”.  He noticed that Pollack was down and quickly began to count.  When he reached ten, the bell sounded, drug-crazed fans swarmed into the ring and jumped onto Jerry’s back, accidentally breaking the arm that had only seconds before been raised in peerless victory.  Jerry barely noticed, however, as one of the throng had found Pollack’s supply of morphine over in a bag just outside Pollack’s corner of the ring.  He shot some of the morphine into Jerry’s neck, momentarily easing Jerry’s pain, at least until the embolism killed him anyway.

Pollack was also killed when the crowd trampled all over him.  The following day, the newspapers ran the story of the fight and its tragic aftermath.  Obituaries for each man revealed that Jerry had left all his money to a pug he called Rupert while Pollack had left all his money to a gopher he called Pete.  Lawyers for both estates spent months trying to track down these animals, but their exhaustive search led them exactly nowhere.  Eventually, it was determined that both fighters had been experiencing hallucinations for some time.  Consequently, both recreational drugs and the hard stuff were banned from all sporting events, except for archery. 

BACK TO TOP

BIG BREAST STORY
By Steve Haag, Ph.D.

At first, you don’t notice it lying there. On your desk. The invitation, lying there.  It’s buried under reports, half-finished crossword puzzles, framed photos of your dogs.  But then you do notice it. Because it’s pink. And nothing else on your desk is pink. You don’t even have an eraser. This invitation, it piques your interest, partly because it’s pink, and partly because you don’t get many invitations. You’re new to the firm, is part of the reason. The cliques in your office are pretty well impenetrable. Just like at any office. Your old office, for starters. But at least you were in a clique at your old office. Here, you’re on your own. 

But and so you look at the invitation: A clip art turkey. Steam-lines waft off it.  YOU’RE INVITED. But you knew that. Because you knew it was an invitation. You could just tell. Inter-office memos aren’t pink and don’t feature clip art. You open it. WELCOME ABOARD!! Please join me and my wife for dinner...  blah blah blah. Signed, your boss.  Well, that was thoughtful, you think. Checking your day planner, you realize you never have plans. You really should go. Show that you’re a friendly guy. A team player. And gracious. Plus, you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in months. Because your girlfriend left you. And you’re lazy. But, hey, at least you do laundry.

You RSVP your boss via the company email. He leaves you a voice mail giving you directions to his house. You have to admit you’re excited and nervous. Your stomach growls contentedly. You’re gonna eat well tomorrow night.

Your boss’s house is closer to your house than you thought. You show up early. But you don’t go inside. Not quite yet. Appearing over-eager could be bad. And what if they’re not ready for you? You choose to sit in your car and work on today’s crossword puzzle. 23 across: Beethoven sonata __T__TI___. Should you have brought wine? You can’t bring yourself to go in the house yet. But it’s too late to run to the store. To buy wine. Damn, you think. This is where a girlfriend would come in handy. She would remind you to bring wine to a dinner. As a gift. You and your girlfriend would enjoy your hosts meal, then the two of you would go home. You’d have sex, watch TV and go to bed. But you’re flying solo now. And sans wine, no less.

Your dashboard clock reads 6:58. Now you should get out of your car. You do so. Your boss sees you coming up the walk and greets you at the door. He doesn’t mention anything about you sitting in your car for 25 minutes. You’re relieved.

You follow your boss to the living room. Pretty swanky, you think. Home entertainment system. The Economist. He offers you a drink. You accept. Your wine would have been moot, no? But your boss would have gladly taken your gift bottle of wine. He seems like a gracious host. You sit on the couch, engage in some idle chitchat. Your boss doesn’t steer the conversation to work. That’s good. You barely know what you’re doing there anyway. You just keep a cluttered desk. It makes you look important. Busy, at least. A cat’s screech upstairs prompts your boss to excuse himself. To investigate.  There you are, all alone, in your boss’s living room. Your decision to belch out loud is squelched by the arrival of your boss’s wife into the living room.

Your jaw drops.

Your jaw drops because the boss’s wife has the largest breasts you have ever seen on a woman. You have seen your fair share of breasts in your life. Even those that would be considered abnormally large. But these. Damn. The rest of her is normal-sized. The boss’s wife smiles and extends a hand. You do likewise. You wonder. About too many things to put into words.  You remember to close your mouth. 

Dinner is served. The boss’s wife is to your right. She passes you baked potatoes.  She passes you turkey and gravy. She sits further away from the table than you and the boss.  She doesn’t have a choice. The boss and his wife saw a movie last weekend. They tell you about it.  The boss’s wife, she has to swing her right arm around her right breast to get her fork to her mouth. This is all very confusing. It shouldn’t be, though. She just has mammoth breasts. More about the movie. You hear them, but you’re not listening.  The boss doesn’t notice. Your behavior, that is. He must get this every time a dinnerguest visits.  You’re not even attracted to the boss’s wife. Her blonde hair is cropped short. A pixie cut. This is not a hairstyle that women with breasts like the boss’s wife should have.  But you really want to see them. Her breasts. You will never see breasts this large again.  You have decided you want to watch her shower. This decision transcends sexuality. Or pornography. This borders on the clinical. Still. You feel that familiar electric hum in your groin. 

Dinner is delicious. You compliment the boss’s wife on her cooking skills. The boss disappears into the kitchen. (Maybe it’s just as well you didn’t have a girlfriend to take to this dinner. You would be attracted to your girlfriend’s body, for sure, but she would be self-conscious about her breasts. On the car ride home accusations would fly. That you wish she had bigger breasts. Like the boss’s wife. You would assure your girlfriend that her breasts were fantastic. Even though she would invariably catch you staring at the boss’s wife’s breasts. This argument would be a losing battle. You would go home and be forced to sleep on the couch. Maybe you’d fall asleep watching MSNBC.)  The boss’s wife shifts in her chair. Her back gets sore easily, she tells you. You think: No shit, Sherlock.  You try not to imagine the boss in bed with his wife. What they do. How they do it. Tittyfuck is on the tip of your tongue. But you swallow it back down. She is not a pornstar. If you were 14, your head would have exploded by now. Either. Both. The boss returns with cherry pie a la mode. You exhale.

Conversation slowly winds down. You check your watch: 8:45. All of your past girlfriends have had smallish breasts. You did not love them any less for it. You’ve prided yourself in the past for not getting hung up on a woman’s shape. Especially her breasts. But also her hips and thighs too.  Other men chide women behind their backs. About their small breasts. But not you. You think of all this as you the boss and his wife make your way to the living room. The boss has insisted you stay for a nightcap. There is no harm in this. It’s a friendly gesture. The boss’s wife fetches the brandy from the liquor cabinet. It’s on the top shelf. She leans and stands on tip-toe. You gape as her breasts push the bottles on the lower shelves into each other. Clink clink. Each breast is larger than your head. Considerably larger. Drinks are served. The boss toasts, congratulating you on being part of the office team. You raise your glass. 

Part of you thinks it would be a good idea to see one of her bras. To quell your interest. You ask for directions to the bathroom. They are given. It’s upstairs. It’s just as well you don’t have a girlfriend to take to this dinner. Would you be able to leave her with your boss and his wife while you sneak around their bedroom? Would that weigh on your conscience? Eventually your girlfriend would learn you stole the boss’s wife’s bra. You couldn’t keep it a secret forever. As you walk down the hallway to the bathroom, you notice the pictures that line the walls. The boss and the boss’s wife in Christmas sweaters. She is punishing her sweater. The boss’s wife with a schnauzer. This is odd. There appears to be no signs of a schnauzer in the house now. It’s probably best left undiscussed. You find the bathroom. A mirror covers one wall. You close your eyes while you pee. You envision the boss’s wife toweling her breasts off in the mirror. She is pink from the hot shower. Each breast weighs at least 15 pounds, you figure. You are giddy. You finish peeing and flush the toilet.

This is serendipitous.  The bathroom is adjacent to the master bedroom. The high pile rug masks your footsteps. The bed is unmade. They weren’t expecting guests. You snicker to yourself. The boss’s wife must sleep on her back. Could her breasts crush her lungs? Can she drive a car? Does she know what color shoes she is wearing? You rifle through the drawers. You’ve never done this before. It feels right, though. Fishing out a bra, you read the size on the label. Your mind reels: 121XXX. Bingo. Your hopes that seeing this bra would quench your thirst for knowledge have been dashed. Seeing this bra has stoked fires. In your brain. In your pants. Your whole body sizzles. You fold the bra best you can. To hide it in the small of your back. Fortunately you are wearing a sportcoat. Nobody will be able to tell. That you’ve stolen it. You close the drawers and head back to the living room. Time to say goodbye.

You thank the boss and his wife. For being such fantastic hosts. They suggest doing this again sometime. You have made a good impression on them. You shake the boss’ hand. You strain to look the boss’s wife in the eye as you shake her hand.  You walk back to your car, breathing deeply.

Getting into your sedan, you throw the crossword puzzle into the passenger seat.  You have to get your head together. You can’t drive in this condition. You remove the bra from the small of you back and inspect it. Bras like these are not sold at stores. Not at stores you’ve ever been to, at least. Probably has to buy them online, the boss’s wife does. You are not tempted to smell the bra. That always struck you as weird. Besides, remember, this fascination is clinical. Not sexual. Despite your loins’ argument to the contrary. You hang the bra on your rearview mirror.  A light clicks on upstairs. In the house. The boss and his wife are getting ready for bed. You start your car. And contemplate driving home without your pants on. Hmmm. You decide against it.

You make it back to your apartment complex. It’s dark inside. And your cat is hungry.  Wash up. Watch Sportscenter. The boss’s wife’s bra shares space with you on the sofa. The electric buzz in your gut earlier has not dissipated. You get up to go to the bathroom. You take the bra with you.

You stand in front of the mirror. You peel off your nightshirt. And your boxers. Your erection bobs its head, nodding assent. Urging you to do it. To put the bra on.  You do it.

You knew it would come to this.

BACK TO TOP

EXCERPT FROM A LONGER SHORT STORY
By Scott LaCounte, Ph.D.

“I’m Sarah.” She extends her hand.

“Jeff.”

“Your sister was my Sunday school teacher when I was a kid.”

“Really?”

She nods yes. “You’re her writer son, aren’t you?”

He nods.

“I remember. You published a book a few years ago. What was it called?”

“Women I Have Slept With.”

“That’s right. Your mom sure was proud when it came out. I checked it out from the library a few years ago. It was pretty good.”

“Yeah? Most people don’t really remember it.”

“Are you working on anything new?”

“Off and on. I have a hard time finishing things though. I guess I was young with all kinds of energy the last time I published—kind of worn off.”

“Sometimes you’re hottest when you’re young. Have you read Zadie Smith? She’s good.”

“Yeah—I like her.”

“I like Neal Pollack too. And he’s cute, don’t you think?”

Jeff nods. “It’s no wonder he’s had sex with so many women. His mere name gives me a stiffy.”

This makes her nervous.

BACK TO TOP