"The Bird and the Bakery"

            The little sparrow wandered around the front door, and every time the glass swung open its corner bell jingled a heartfelt sound that sent the hopping creature into bliss.

            He wanted to go in. But a bakery was not a bird’s domain. It was a person’s, hand and foot, to walk in and pick up fresh hot bread and to storm out just as quickly. He’d never rush out if he could go in— the sparrow would gratefully take his time.

            He scooted back a few inches to observe the window display. Autumn was approaching; twinkle lights bordered the wide pane and purple and yellow paisley-cloth maple leaves stuck magically against the glass frame. Pretty boxes wrapped in crinkly brown-packaging were tied at the top with flamboyant red bows of silk, spaced evenly up and down around silver platters of white cupcakes sprinkled with chocolate shavings. At the center of the marvel was in fact a live— and rather enormous— fan-tailed goldfish swimming happily and lazily back in forth in his glass dome.

            The bakery was not a bird’s domain. But this bakery was glorious. It sat old and aging in a moss green structure across Bridgeway Street from the shores of the Bay, across the street from where cold waves noisily splashed against the sharp uneven rocks along this wondrous waterfront. The Sparrow sometimes would fly into that big City across the waters. He was certain there were hundreds of bakeries out there on end. He never really saw one, but he knew they were there. He could only dream of their towering beauty over this little shop he now stood outside of.

            Yet the sparrow was alone. No one else would stop him. The next customer he eyed— a little boy and mother laughing and skipping through the door— he skipped after too. Flying would cause too much attention.

            He stood patiently and admirably in line. the frantic happy boy held his young mother’s hand and tapped his little fingers onto the displays of cookies and slices of cake and eagerly switched his choice of pastry around. She hushed him as it came to their turn— in a deep sweet voice she decided upon two meringues and seven tea cookies topped with sugar cookies and roasted almonds. The man behind the counter, an old, but rustic charming sort of gentleman with moon-shaped spectacles submissively smiled and brought the mother her sweets. She grabbed a plastic card out of a red leather wallet and gave it to the baker who swiped the card swiftly. The sparrow watched the transaction with fascination; he moved courteously out of the way for the mother and the little boy who seemed not to have noticed the little excited bird. The sounds of the bell tingling as the door opened and the elegant mother’s high heels clapping onto the floor seemed too real. He was happily not in a bird’s domain.

            No one stood before him. He flew quickly onto the counter before the humble sleepy baker. The baker arched his brows and adjusted the moons on his nose. “And what shall I get for you, Sir?”

            The sparrow was quiet. Then he softly sung (for sparrow voices are song, not noise), “I’d like an almond. Just one, from that cookie, if you please.”

            The rustic baker moved to the displays of sweets and delicately plucked a single slice of toasted almond from a cookie. The sparrow took it into his mouth. He ate it on the spot.

            When he had finished, in little over a few seconds, he looked up anxiously into the eyes of the baker. The baker was resting on his forearms, smiling curiously at the little bird who dared to enter his domain. “Don’t worry,” he assured the sparrow, “it was free.”

"Shopping with Headphones"

            He actually enjoyed Sundays. The only hardest decision he had to make was to skip the vanilla meringues for another box of pad Thai or maybe something else. The choices and alternatives could go on and on just like the wide but congested isles of any Trader Joe’s. And for Simon, living conveniently so close to the one off of College Avenue was a perfect arrangement, a much loved routine. He always planned out his groceries well for them to last at least two weeks.

            The little wheels of the cart turned the corner, leaving matte skid marks across the glossed floor. He couldn’t hear it; his headphones were in. Having his iPhone on music whenever he wasn’t forced to converse with anyone seemed nonchalant to Simon—to him, everyone had whispering into their ears. He never cared for the random looks other shoppers gave at this oddity, his eyes were for the mark-down on organic cheese puffs or for today, the special pricing of wines on the tiki chalkboard behind the bustling registers.

            A simpleton like Simon kept to himself, reasoning his music that only he could hear wouldn’t disrupt others. His eyes were in focus mainly on the food items and sharply dodging or blocking others. From experience, when he hadn’t the headphones with him, Simon found the track-suited middle aged women, old men gripping their veteran’s newspapers tightly against their baskets, and the reserved young parents with strollers to be bothered the most by traffic. It was a low show at Joe’s, to his relief. Picking and debating items carried on faster much to his chagrin—he could pay better attention to the songs. He just had it on The Smiths; the shuffle took hold and brought up Joy Formidable’s “Whirring.”

            Staring down the clear aisle of packaged pastas into which he started, he couldn’t imagine what would be going on a Sunday that dragged its regulars away from here. But he wasn’t alone. Just as he had made his round there, he made for the corner to syrups. Someone tapped his shoulder.

            “Jesus!” he spat softly to himself and turned around. An older man in his sixties—nothing of the veteran newspaper-wielding type, thank god—had his brows arched and was staring up and down the young Simon. “Does it work?” he asked amusingly.

            “Huh?” Simon said, removing his headphones. “I’m sorry?”

            The man didn’t change his concerned expression. “Music and shopping?” he sounded perplexed. Simon stood squeamishly with his mouth open. He couldn’t help but study the man; he had no basket, just a box of wheat thins and packed raw tri-tip slice crooked in the gap of his fat left arm. It was nearing summer, but the man seemed unnoticing with his layered plaid flannel under a big YOSEMITE sweater.  “I uh, I guess it does,” Simon shrugged.

            The man twisted his mouth in an odd way of disapproval. “Don’t see how.”

            “But it does!” Simon said meekly, almost impatiently. He hated being bothered by people in public—that’s why he had his headphones for most times, didn’t he? “I—I just focus better with them.”

            “The real world don’t rely on music, son” the man continued quickly, rudely standing within inches of Simon’s own body. Simon turned at the waist 180 degrees to mock browse the shelf that was right there—Mrs. Meyer’s organic house cleaners marked down 85 cents. “Guess we live in different worlds then, Sir,” he said stiffly to the man, looking down contemptuously at the sale and swiping some bath cleaner into his cart. He didn’t really want it.

            The man was unmoved. “My granddaughter’s the same. She comes to see me with her family, her music’s in one ear at least. She gets to drive the family up to my place or family parties—she puts the radio on blast. It’s alright for you, kid, if that’s your thing, but something so dull as shopping for groceries! Don’t you ever get in anyone’s way?”

            “Not if I can help it,” Simon replied softly. “Excuse me, I really do have to get moving on.”
            A laugh came from the older man. “As you wish, have a good one,” he returned in conclusion and walked off.

            Simon raced two aisles over. Fuck that, he thought before replaying the iPhone.

            He was back in balance by the time he got to check out. Three spaces before his turn, Simon hummed almost muted to the Temper Trap on the play now. It was almost summer, he remembered. He could even tell by the way Trader Joe’s was decorated, in faux bamboo wall covering and vibrant blue crepe paper swaying from wall to wall. The fake tropical flowers were just strung on each check-out station that past week; they weren’t there Thursday when he came in to quickly restock some Sailor Jerry rum for Armand and Kayla’s engagement kick-back at his place. He looked ahead at the cashier. To his dismay, it wasn’t the pretty little blonde with the dented sparrow necklace draping from her throat that usually snuck him a free stick of Toblerone chocolate—“Think of it as a sample,” she winked the time he accidentally grabbed two and was paying for the price of one. This time he saw Sandra, the other cashier he readily dealt with, a jolly plump Peruvian who tried to recommend some Motown tunes to Simon when she looked up and saw his headphones.

            “Hey look!” Simon could hear pierce through the music. The dark-haired child in the aisle over was seated in the cart looking wide-eyed at him. She was about six, or seven, wearing a bubbly purple floral blouse and white cotton shorts. “He’s got something in his ears, Mommy.”

            The young mother looked his way and smiled. “He’s listening to music,” she said sweetly to her child. “Better leave him alone, it’s probably a good song.”
            “I know a good song!” the child nearly cried. “The one Sebastian sang in The Little Mermaid—we dance to it all the time, Mommy!” Her mom began laughing and shaking her head. Simon good-heartedly waved to her in mutual amusement. He looked straight, it was almost his turn up.

            He could still hear the little girl rambling on excitedly. “I think when I grow up I want to be cool and listen to music and feel happy all the time,” she was telling her mom. “Do you think that boy is happy with his music?”

            Simon sighed and gave a quick laugh. His headphones had been off by the time the girl finished—now he replaced them back onto his lobes with satisfaction.  He’d heard enough.

"Winter Break"

            Turn on the radio. Vince’s hands are knobby. It’s Lana Del Rey’s low voice all scratched and distorted because Live105.3 is static out here for some reason. The car’s going, some ’08 Mazda 3—white. I’m sure it’s not his car. There’s what looks like a baby boar tusk hanging from the rearview. The car we drove in two months ago was green—the tusk was there too. At least he’s laughing; I can never tell his mood especially over voicemails.

            Nearing nine o’ clock, we pull up to Skid’s on the edge of Emeryville, up Hollis near Adeline. He always opted for this place, with its dimming blue twinkle-lights strung around the wide windows, its steel door, its mismatched tables of odd white shades. Mike’s still working behind the counter, nodding to us with that gap-tooth smile and always playing The Black Keys on repeat. No matter, we got a seat and Vince declares the drinks are on him.

            “One thing,” he says sternly to me with those browns eyes I know too well by now.

            “Mmm?”

            “You’ve got to try spinal fluid with me!”
            “Yeah right—” but Mike is already approaching with the two murky brandy glasses full of what could have been velvet root beer float. Vince—or Mike, whenever I had the time to drive out there and give him a hello—never gave in when asked about what the hell was in that thing besides the Grey Goose vodka.

            Catching up gets easier as the spinal fluid goes down. Lab work, fake IDs, the situation he was in up in Portland (like how he could put up with the snow and how good really were the donuts), selling my brother’s comics to a place on Divisadero in the City for Christmas shopping money—I just really can’t wait ‘til he mentions Carolina. She was why I had to show up. Had to hear it for myself.

            “Is she the one?” I say to him. He takes a breath before downing the rest of my fluid, then he bursts out that laughter that’s always been reassuring to me. Just then someone comes in from the street and starts shouting that a car’s alarm’s going off.

            The front passenger’s window’s been smashed with a wrench they threw onto the dashboard, and the locks on the front doors got jammed in the attempt. They found nothing of interest—except the boar tusk of course. Mike’s inside calling the police and a tow truck, but me and Vince take it easy on the cold black curve. He gets up to examine the car again. “This sure is one fuck-up!” he starts laughing again. “Another reason I can’t wait to get back to Portland.” He’s running his hands through his blonde curls roughly; I know he’s quite upset.

            I go and kiss the hood of the car, leaving my neon lipstick there into a perfect impression. “Alice!” Vince exclaims, looking with satisfaction, “Car looks just as good now.”
            “I know how to fix things,” I say mockingly with a dumb smile. Bet you Carolina would never do that. He doesn’t get to answer, instead he gets out that ’droid phone. “I’m going to call Carolina.” I knew it was her car.

            She’s the one.

"i like America"

There were two dark-haired men on the platform talking today, they had worked the same shift of Cheng Feng's Express food some weeks back. Thought they'd never see each other again. And when they did their words were colorful and jumped around with laughter and amusement at this chance encounter.

They spoke Spanish.

And fromt he tracks out near the endless steel containers stacked and cargo ships resting at the rusty docks, a guy's made a modest dream with a boxcar- turned-sports grill and bar.

I like America. THings should be simple, but thank God they're not.

"Mermaids"

            The mermaids came to Capitola and I knew I was doing the right thing.

            Timing couldn’t have been better for my Rosie. She loved summer, and Capitola wasn’t that far from San Jose. It was the perfect beach—small, but just right for anyone—and especially now, the mermaids.

            By the time I brought Rosie out there they’d all left, save for one. We were lucky. Rosie was going to have a summer like none she’d seen in her nine years. And she was drawn to fairy things. Her mother had just spent a fortune on children’s series and pop-up encyclopedias about dragons and griffins and such. Rosie delighted in these, and read them devotedly to delight her mom.

            The first day we arrived in the little sunspot of a coastal town, Rosie insisted we drive first to the harbor before checking into the bungalow. I drove the car through the small winding streets past the warm-colored little shops, and we were parked along the edges of the smooth yellow sand. She was tugging at my hand and running ahead out to the sea. At the back of the crowd already gathered in the waves, we waited our turn to get at the front where the sea maiden entertained. Some people saw us, noticed a sweet-faced little brunette girl who didn’t bother to roll up her jean hems and was tightly holding onto her father’s hand. They moved out, letting Rosie through first.

            The mermaid was a given. She was beautiful with the expected sprite features of moss-colored long tresses bobbing in the waters that enfolded her gray glowing body up to the shoulders. Her eyes were black and glistened like a dog’s, or a whale’s for that matter. Mermaids weren’t much for me, but with Rosie this meeting was different. And it altered me too, because she was happy.

            A little bit after settling into the waterfront hut we rented for the few months ahead, she begged me to take her for a waffle cone and back to the waters. There was a narrow concrete promenade for the people to trod, and wooden benches pelted in seagull droppings faced the beach along the stroll. It was sitting on one of these benches that Rosie began asking of her mother.

            “She said she’d be coming,” she spoke excitedly.

            “You know she’s busy, sweet,” I had to remind her. I always tried to avoid confessing that her mom was on business trips yes, but extended her stays in Miami and Chicago to enough time to cover the bars and shopping with her close girl colleagues—enough time from us. Usually it was a week, a month at max.

            “I heard people talk that she’s sick,” Rosie went on. “The mermaid’s stayed behind because of something wrong with her.”
            “It’s probably just that, talk.”
            She was biting into the edges of her ice cream cone, the melting cream similar in color to that marvelous creature flanking the shores in the distance. “But do you think the others will be coming back?”

            “Well, I’d sure hope so!”
            She was laughing now and tossed the crumbling cone to the birds. “Mom will love it here.”
            The next morning was when Dorothy called me. “How long this time,” I asked blankly to my wife.
            “Maybe a few days this time,” she was almost whispering. “It’s only a matter of days when they open the exhibit. I’ll be back darling, for Rosie. If I wait, I’ll be able to pick something up from here in the collection!”

            “I trust you,” I told her, even though I didn’t. But what point was there in calling her out—she wouldn’t come sooner.

            The talk was true, the mermaid had taken ill. But each day, the people were saying, she still showed brightness in spirit and playful grace in her movements, and to the children who flocked to the waves she sang to them in her smooth and low native tongue. I let Rosie go out on her own one afternoon and she came to the hut with golden pink shells. “She’d disappear into the water for minutes,” she spoke, falling asleep in my arms on the balcony wicker seat, “and she returned with the sweetest things for the kids. ‘Was one of the lucky ones.”
            Rosie loved helping me make dinner. In the outdated cramped kitchen she made sure the heat was strong, salt was plenty, and that thyme and dill were minced to precision. She was bent on bringing the sickly sea maiden some stew, even if it wasn’t what she ate. Dorothy called again. The days turned into two weeks.

            I was hearing about things getting worse with the woman out at sea. Along those neon stucco houses in the north of the town beneath the railroad tracks, the get-well cards and ribbon-wrapped tins of home-baked shortbreads for her piled and reached as far as those homes. We were walking there, and the path was blocked by two older couples seated in plastic white lawn chairs gazing out to the water. “I heard it was something in the waters out here,” a thin man with a straw panama on his head was saying to the woman closest to his side.

            “But the waters around here are beautiful, compared to LA,” the older woman, far from him, remarked.

            “They say the merfolk hate it down there,” the closer companion to the panama man said. “It’s where they’re from, but they can’t stand it.”
            “Perhaps they’re not used to up here then,” the other man with a curling black moustache joined in.

            “She won’t last long, then,” the panama man said. I looked down to Rosie; she’d been covering her ears the whole time.

            I let Rosie out to the water to see her, and I remained watching from the bedroom window following her tiny dot to the white waves surfacing. She didn’t want to spend time with me at the moment. Lately she’d ridden her blue beach cruiser through the sand with the basket loaded with her fairy books. She wasn’t reading to the maiden, but was bent on asking her facts about her people and if she could disprove any claims written in the books. “Everyone likes attention,” was what Rosie figured.

            Into the second month we’d been in Capitola did the mermaid stop rising to the surface. She stayed submerged in the murky blue below, Rosie told me after returning once, but you could still make an outline of her beneath the waves. She was swimming on her back slowly, but wrapping her long hair around her like a sable coat you wouldn’t want to lose and kept fastening tightly around your shoulders. Rosie was throwing her books out—all of them weren’t true, to her surprise. She knew mom wouldn’t get mad at her.

            The woman out at sea had died by the time Dorothy met us. Rosie was smiling at her arrival, but I knew she wasn’t embracing her mom for her finally showing, or the exquisite couture fashion dolls she’d bought her. My Rosie was feeling grief for the first time. She was too young for it.

            On the last day of July before we were leaving the hut, Rosie took Dorothy out to the benches on the concrete promenade. From the windows I could see them starring listlessly out to the sea. Dorothy’s mouth opened at intervals as if she were talking. Rosie was just still, her focus to the beach. The sea maiden’s body was going to be exhumed by scientists heading up from Monterey; this was disheartening to Rosie. Miraculously in the night her floating remains disappeared. The people supposed it sank; few believed her people had come to reclaim her corpse. But the mermaids were being spotted again near Huntington Beach; they were at home, though they couldn’t stand it there. I don’t believe Rosie bothered to tell her mother these things—she knew she wouldn’t care for any of it.

            Dorothy fell asleep in the car ride home with us. She’d had an exhausting but exhilarating past few months at God knows where she’d been stationed. The road went through the mountains enveloped by tall cedars. After driving through one winding pass safely I turned to look at Rosie in the back, who was already staring at me. School would start in a month for her, but with small short laughs she was already talking of next June.

there was a fish named Alex

he belonged to a girl named Milan, living in San Francisco who bought the fish at the request of her roommate. her sister Paris, who wished his name had been Sergio or Barnaby, frequently came over to Milan’s place where the three grew fond of each other, particularly Alex.
soon the winter break was upon the college students, and Alex was taken home, home being across the Bay Bridge. everyday he grew, bigger and bigger, almost too big for his small fishbowl which Milan and Paris disliked cleaning. and he got bigger and bigger, so his size demanded he be placed in a huge tupperware where he could see all around him. gradually this enclosure included colorful stones and a rock archway from his old place.
then Paris took a leave of absence from school, and remained at home to tend to Alex while Milan returned to the City.
he grew bigger. Paris knew, Milan knew, and Alex knew. in his earlier days he would constantly swim over and under, back and forth, through the rock archway. he even slept in it most nights. one time he nearly got stuck swimming through the tunnel. now he hardly goes near the tunnel at all.

"The Great American City"

3 hours difference couldn't whither their love.

Sundays were mandatory, all other hours of the week highly welcomed. AT&T had been a bitch but Lou got the plan. And $20 a month more meant more minutes to hear Lilly's low but warm pitch in the receiver caked in his spit.

She liked Chicago, and Lilly's heart was won. Lou was losing, and he loved his sister with all he could before she disappeared into that corner bistro on the riverfront or the street crossing out in Wicker Park somewhere.

She was all he had left. But never would he go out to that great American city-- he didn't have the heart. Lilly had ran off with it, miles ahead of Lou. He was already there before he'd ever want to be.

By Your Side: "The Mission District"

            It is old, it is life. The Mission is where hard dreams refuse to die, when they have gone only so far, and just out of reach.

            He could see this in the taquerias with their dark windows and dented pick-ups parked along the sidewalks of smutty Victorian houses. Kirk lost a silver button out there. He heard the clatter of the round piece as it hit the pavement.

            He walked on, it was his way. His way was to always think, constantly stroll through his endless thoughts as he too strolled along. At the moment he’d been thinking of what would happen to her and him.

            He’d left June back at the bed, enfolded and limp in the sky blue bed sheets. The place was 214 off of 24^th and Mission, on the third floor, number 5. It wasn’t home to June or Kirk. But they were there and here he was, just leaving now, slowly getting out from underneath the covers where she lay beautifully bare and relaxed—but she was watching him.

            “Ooh, sexy,” she said playfully as he pulled his jeans up over his moss briefs. He looked back at her, saying nothing. He was only wishing he didn’t have to get going, sent out by her to find themselves some decent cheap coffee at two in the morning. The Mission was flooded with possibilities, twenty-four seven.

            The idea came about when they had been in bed moments before, holding each other close making a home out of a strange place and entangled in a stranger’s soft cotton things. They had the radio from a 90’s Bose system set to a whisper, audible for them to pick up the tune but nothing harsh to yell over. Most of the talk was yogurt, parties, holes in socks, the softness of each other’s lips. Most importantly to them was discussing two weeks from now, as it was in this time that they would be graduates of UC Berkeley, and off to a new life with uncertain promises to good or bad.

            “It’s like this,” she was saying, touching his cheek and sliding it down to his stubbled jaw line, “What’s there for me back at home besides the hotel? I’m studying marketing just for the sake of helping out with the place. Get it back on the map and a part of Pismo Beach again. Hell, just get back Pismo Beach we all once knew.”
            “What would you say Pismo Beach is, essentially?” He sincerely wanted to know.

            “Unnoticed, adrift from most stops along Highway 1, from the rest of this sunny fast-lane idea of California. I guess I’ll just be going back to that. But I sure want to change things when I’m back, if that makes sense.”

            He kissed her. “I’d like to come back with you,” he said in nearly one breath, truth in every word.

            “There’s nothing for graphics out there.”
            “San Luis Obispo’s just up the road. There’s bound to be work.” She groaned and turned over, a blast of cool air rushing in as the blue sheets folded over and off their shirtless bodies. “Find work, make a living—make life work. Who wants to make it work, when we don’t have anything to really work for except passing time comfortably? Make it count, make everything count, and that’s all I want.” She sat up, and looked down at Kirk on his back, with his hands grabbing her waist. “Like this,” she continued, stroking his extended arm, “I want this to count.”
            “You know I do too,” Kirk replied. “Every minute. Precious.”
            “You’re precious,” she mocked.
            “It makes a perfect fit then, precious and frugality. You’re nothing to be wasted, even time. I’ll sure make it count then when I say that I’m in love.” Kirk felt her palm press into his wrist, hinting at how startled she’d just been. “I wouldn’t have asked you out here with me,” he went on.

            “There wasn’t a better night to tell me,” she finally replied. Smiling, she looked around and continued, “I gotta say, really am impressed with this place.”        
            She’d taken immediately to the stuffy studio after they both had first rammed through the jammed front door. The sounds they made, stomping through! They were loud, quick, from two youngsters whose high laughter reeked of scotch and marshmallow vodka. It was cold and foggy outside, and they’d just been walking around the streets all the way from the bar on Valencia up to the apartment. Before reaching the place he and June had been huddled together against the fog walking, June having no clue about where they would end up next. Had he known that it would all lead up to the small talk in the blue sheets, Kirk would never had second guessed from the start the question he asked Anthony when he agreed to house-sitting his place that weekend. That afternoon he’d met up with his roommate from freshman year, to get the keys and ask if it was alright to have a girl over in the evening.

            “It’s not much for a girl to hang in,” Anthony warned, but he was smiling. “She’ll be fine if you’re there. Assures me you won’t be leaving the place unguarded in the nights.”
            Kirk sighed, jingling the apartment keys in his hand as he walked to the BART station a block down. It was a relieving answer that he’d honestly not been expecting. When he’d have to ask Anthony about letting a girl he’d only met two months ago into his place, the thought of it kept him up that night before, two in the morning, just when he was up thinking, only in bed and alone, not along some street in the south of San Francisco where he lost a silver button and was looking for cheap coffee.