I walked without you tonight
Missing our chats and smalltalk
I spoke for you
As I always did
Though tonight you weren’t there with me

I walked without you tonight
Past feral cats and startled raccoon
Without you near
Close by my side
In shadow of bush and budding tree

I walked without you tonight
Quiet and calm and a lazy moon
Walking companions
Companions no more
Safe voyage crossing the midnight sea

Yes, the glasses in the pic look a bit dorky today. So?

I think his handwriting, which Mom told me was always beautiful (even on letters written in a foxhole during WWII), is the only characteristic of Charles that I haven’t tried to emulate at some point during my life. (I even took up smoking, albeit briefly, in spite of it certainly leading to his death.

Summer vacations at their house were filled with trips to the nearest store (whichever one sold the latest Revell plastic car kit, some Testor’s glue, and as much paint as they dared allow us to play with), playing football in the Zoysia-grass yard, helping him cut some roses from his garden for his wife, and hopefully eating homemade biscuits with sliced tomatoes (picked just before dinner). As dusk settled in, we would sit on the front stoop and drink Coke from little bottles and listen to the race cars a few miles away at Ohio Valley Raceway.

Before bedtime, if we were lucky, we would mix up some “dog’s mess” (an ice cream float in a bowl). That probably explains some of my weakness for sweets.

After he died, my Aunt Lorraine (who died last Monday) gave me his collection of Popular Electronics magazines, which covered a span from the late 60’s through ’72. Since I could no longer talk to Charles, or go visit him every Summer, I read these magazines cover-to-cover, imagining Charles reading them a few years before I did.

I soaked up everything I could, and by the time I decided to study electronics in high school, I already had a very solid foundation. I knew Charles had used what he learned from these magazines to build his own stereo system and speakers, and so I built the same kinds of things from the plans I found in those pages.

When I began driving, I wanted a fast car like Charles’ ’57 Bel Air. I wanted to drive like he did (I tend to drive too fast), fix my own car like he did (I generally can), and look as cool as he looked when he would take the wheel and let Tom and I accompany him on a trip to the store. When we returned, he would pause after we crossed the railroad tracks and see how fast we could go on the (nearly private) two-lane road that led to their house.

He always made us promise, with a grin, to not tell Aunt Lorraine about this. (When I asked her about it a few years ago, she said she knew, and that Charles knew that she knew, because it was impossible to not hear the sound of the Bel Air racing down the road.) I always felt bad for keeping a secret from her, so it makes me smile she knew, all along.

This week, in saying goodbye to Lorraine, I realized that I’m saying goodbye to Charles, again, 44 years later.

He’s still cool.

The behemoth, I hear it. He snarls and coughs the cough of a diesel and cries with the scream of grinding gears. He approaches, even now!

Alas, I am a man of an unclean home, and he has caught me unprepared.

Arising from my bed, I search in haste for the leg coverings of the man named Levi. My slumber persists, and clouds my vision. Even in my first steps from bed, I stepped across the garment, but saw it not. I cannot be naked when the beast arrives!

Moments pass but feel as though they were mere seconds. My panic draws nigh!

When I finally discover the garment of Levi, I hear the shrill call of the beast’s regression.

“Beep!” I hear him cry. Once. Twice. Thrice!

My lower extremities are covered, but my feet are barren and unprotected!

I then find the footware of the mighty boatman. With the pace of the mighty sloth, I slide them on with nary a knot to be tied.

I am convinced that I will fail in my preparations. I am doomed.

Suddenly, I find a garment for my torso that is almost sufficient. It lacks protection from the cold for my upper extremities, but this is by design, as it is the garment of the athlete’s preparation. When the athlete prepares, he requires no sleeves.

And thus, with speed approaching a small fraction of the athlete and the grace of the beloved circus clown, I race to meet the beast. I somewhat quickly move from room to room, gathering refuse, and bidding farewell to the many things that the lady of the house had deemed suitable only for those who wish to be labeled “hoarders.”

The canine of the house fears for me, and follows me closely. Her love is evident, as is her shepherding nature. Her swift and silent movements inhibit me to the left and right when I least suspect. Only by the grace of our Lord do I escape the perils of gravity and unyielding surfaces on the ground. Twice I fear my facial features may become implanted in the infertile soil of hardwood.

Then, when all seemed lost and my failure was almost certain, I emerge from the domicile. Victory over the beast is close at hand!

Quickly I release my burdens of refuse at the crossroads of my egress and that of my neighbors’, and retreat again to the warmth and comfort of my residence. I have won the battle, and the beast may now come and consume my offering.

I am awake, but at peace and sated. The canine sits at my feet as I recline in sweet victory. The richness of my coffee exceeds that of my soul, and finally, my heart races no more. The sound of the beast is distant, and no longer threatening.

As I sit and listen, he growls and belches in his most brutish way, and discards the vessels of my refuse and waste as the drunkard discards the empty vessels of his obsession.

But then a most horrid thought comes crashing into my consciousness and floods my inner soul. “I forgot to take out the recycling!”

But amidst the crackle of dead winter leaves
Discovered with every step
The voice of the Pine gently whispered to us
As wind through its needles was caught

The look in your eyes told me you heard it too
Lifting your face to the sun
In silence we sat as the Pine told its tale
And the history of every knot

The Maple and Oak nearby quietly sleep
Perhaps they have nothing to say
But in stillness the voice of the whispering Pine
Shares the solace of win’try thought

As you might surmise from the starting and ending times, we didn’t set any speed records on our trip. However, this isn’t written to complain about the early hour, the duration of the trip, or any inconvenience this represents to me.

Walking Through Life

My aunt is the oldest sister of my mom, and in recent years has become less and less able to move around as she used to. Like mom (who died in 2000), she was a clear product of farm life, with the physical and mental toughness that one expects from such. Her sometimes hard edge is in sharp contrast to the demeanor of my other aunt, 89, who up until this week has been the gentle, soft-spoken caretaker of her older sister.

Unfortunately, the younger sister became hospitalized this week with pneumonia, leaving my aunt with no caretaker. My sister and I, being the closest relatives, stepped in, and so here we are, staying with our aunt, who for so many years epitomized strength and self-sufficiency.

Here we have no WiFi network and limited TV channels, and are about 30-45 minutes away from our homes, but it feels much more remote than that would suggest. Perhaps because this home is where we spent many weeks in childhood summers, it feels as if we’ve been transported to a very distant place. Memories are rich and abundant, and not just because the walls are covered with pictures of our various relatives, including our parents.

I’m speaking of course for myself. My sister, who has been much better about visiting our aunts in recent years, may not be feeling the waves of nostalgia quite so clearly. Being male may also give me the luxury of emotions that my sister can’t play host to, given the less pleasant aspect of bathroom assistance that falls to her in this situation.

Maybe it’s some strange form of guilt then, causing me to recognize that once again, I’m both literally and figuratively walking with my aunt in these days. It hasn’t always been so, and I’m recognizing this morning the uniqueness of this opportunity in this phase of her life.

Lonely Steps

As we made the return trip from the bathroom this morning, I found myself wondering how many times my aunt had struggled this way with such a seemingly simple task. Has she been this weak for years and I just didn’t know? How many times had her younger sister needed to get up in the middle of the night to walk the steps I just walked?

When we arrived at the recliner, after our arduous journey, the look of gratitude on my aunt’s face was evident. If she held any thoughts of why I hadn’t visited often, or called regularly, it didn’t show. All I saw was the smile of one who is grateful. She hadn’t walked alone. 

She was once more safely in her chair, no longer fearing a fall as she most certainly had during the trip. Her arms and legs had stopped quivering with the telltale combination of strain and fear that I’ve seen come with using a walker this way.

I walked alongside my dad in much the same way in the weeks leading up to his death.

Gratitude

This morning I am here in the dark, hoping for more sleep as I sit in the recliner adjacent to my aunt’s. Listening to her somewhat labored breathing, it’s unclear how many more walks I’ll have the opportunity to share with her, if any of those walks will lead to interesting and fun places, the way our walks had when I visited here as a child, or if they’ll be of the mundane variety of tonight’s. Most likely, we won’t be taking strolls down the country road to the local market. The market closed years ago and the road is now far too busy.

Even so, I’ll be glad we took a walk tonight. The path wasn’t busy, and we could take our time.

“Tickets! Have your tickets ready!”

The voice roused Scott. He wondered how long he’d been out. That was some nap.

He checked his watch… but it wasn’t there. Neither was his phone.

Now he was wide awake.

“I’ve been robbed!” he said aloud.

As soon as he spoke, he regretted doing so. He wasn’t on his train.

He had to be dreaming. That was the only rational explanation.

He had boarded an Amtrak commuter that ran from Baltimore-Washington International to DC. It wasn’t exactly modern, but compared to this train—it might as well have been a space ship.

This looked and felt like something right out of “The Great Train Robbery.”

He looked at the seats. Velvet? Who upholsters with velvet anymore?

Scott tried to remember what he’d eaten last night. Whatever it was… note to self.

He looked around the car, and was greeted by vacant expressions. None of the other passengers looked the least bit familiar.

The Conductor looked at him and smiled a sweet, grandfatherly smile, apparently ignoring Scott’s previous outburst. There were only a handful of people in the car, and he was attentively taking his time with someone in a few rows ahead as he examined their ticket.

Scott reached into his pocket to get his ticket out. At this point, he wasn’t going to be surprised if his Amtrak ticket was gone and had been replaced with one to Tombstone.

He had no ticket in his coat pockets. He checked his shirt.

The shirt didn’t even have a breast pocket. The cuffs were well-made, as was the front.

As dreams go, this had an extraordinary level of detail.

“Ticket sir?”

The Conductor interrupted Scott’s preoccupation with the shirt.

Holding up his hands, Scott grinned and said, “I guess I don’t have one.”

Scott was playing with his dream now. He wondered what strange twist it would take. He looked up.

The almost comical smile had disappeared from the Conductor’s face.
“That is… unfortunate.”

The Conductor’s words were unsettling for some reason.

“Without a ticket,” the Conductor continued, “you have no proof that your fare has been paid.”

There was something in the Conductor’s tone that had shifted. Where his smile had been sweet and kindly, and the lines on his aging face had seemed friendly, without the smile he now seemed quietly threatening. His voice was also lower, such that only Scott could hear what he was saying.

Then there was the smell he gave off. His outstretched hand had come near Scott’s face, and reeked of some kind of industrial cleaner, but a foul odor had followed him over as he walked. It was now overpowering the smell of whatever he’d cleaned his hands with.

Scott decided to go for friendly and said, “Look… surely there’s a way we could work something out. I’ll be glad to…”

“Yes, surely we can” the Conductor interrupted.

And then the smile returned, but now it was downright horrifying. Scott looked around, and other passengers were watching the exchange with mild curiosity, but none seemed to have picked up the weird vibe he was getting from the Conductor.

Scott looked at the woman in the row across from him. She looked back at him with an awkward smile that invited no further interaction. She was dressed in a simple dress, from apparently the same costume shop that had made his shirt and suit.

She showed the Conductor her ticket, he touched his hat and smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Two rows ahead and across the aisle there was a small boy, with no adult accompanying him, who looked out the windows, peeked over his seat the way boys do, and played with some kind of wooden puzzle. He seemed to sense that Scott was looking at him, and turned around and looked back. His face was happy, and he gave a quick wave before turning around and going back to his game.

As he was moving on to the next row, the Conductor leaned back to Scott and said, “At our next stop, I will take you up to the tender. You seem able bodied enough to work.”

As the Conductor spoke with someone in the row behind, Scott turned to watch the exchange. He immediately regretted doing so, as the Conductor shot him a glare that silently said, “Mind your own business.”

Scott closed his eyes and listened intently, but all he could hear was mumbling until the passenger behind him spoke louder.

“No… please!” he pleaded.

Then Scott heard a familiar and unmistakable sound and his eyes flew open. He’d heard it many times, so he didn’t need to turn around and confirm it.

It was clicking/zipping sound of handcuffs, “Brrrrip!”

If the sound of the first cuff got Scott’s attention, the second sent a chill down his spine. He tried to remember something… anything about the man in that row, but he couldn’t. He didn’t think there were many others in the car behind him, and the lady across the aisle seemed indifferent to the commotion that had erupted behind Scott.

His mind racing now, Scott had completely abandoned the idea of this being a dream. He was in a mild panic, and just wanted to escape.

He looked out the window, but there was nothing in the dark shadows that passed to give Scott any indication of where he might be, or might be going.

Hours passed. The rhythmic sound of the wheels on the rails and the gentle rocking of the car would normally have been sleep-inducing, but now they seemed maddening.

Scott looked around the car again. Nobody else was sleeping either. He couldn’t remember ever seeing that before.

The train car shuddered with the familiar sensation of the train slowing. Apparently, they were coming to a stop, though there was nothing to be seen out the windows to indicate how close the station might be, or that there even was one.

As the car slowed to a halt, Scott looked around, and everyone except the handcuffed man behind him got up and started toward the door. Thinking this might be his chance, he joined them.

As he stepped off the train and onto the platform, Scott noticed that everyone was waiting for a door at the station to open. The other passengers had all started lining up, so he slipped into the line behind the boy from the front of his car, and a little girl.

Several people lined up behind Scott, and he relaxed a bit. The platform was almost pitch black, with only oil lamps at the very corners making it possible to avoid bumping into the other passengers.

Just then, the little girl in front of Scott turned around and looked up at him. As she did, her large bonnet revealed, not an innocent smile, but the face of the Conductor.

Scott backed up suddenly, almost knocking the woman behind him over. He caught his breath, and noticed the girl’s finger, beckoning him to come closer. As he did, he noticed the same stench that had been so overpowering in the rail car. As she spoke, the Conductor’s voice somehow crept from her mouth.

“This is not the way to the tender,” she said.

Scott stood up as the little girl turned back around, and then noticed the Conductor, the one he’d met in the car, standing next to him, glaring.

His voice was low as he spoke. “This way.”

The Conductor turned on his heel and began walking back toward the train. Scott considered making a break for it again, but the memory of the Conductor’s face on the little girl’s body was still too vivid.

As they reached the tender, the Conductor opened the door and waited for Scott to step up and inside. As he entered, the platform lit up behind him. They had opened the door to the station, and impossibly bright light came pouring out of the doorway. The line slowly started moving as the passengers stepped inside.

Turning back to the tender, it took Scott several seconds to understand what it was that he was seeing. Unlike some coal-fired engines where the tender is a separate car, this one seemed to have the it built onto the back of the engine. The firebox was at the front, next to the door where they entered, with a windowed door that allowed you to see the condition of the fire.

At the back, it looked like a small pile of unsplit logs and branches. Scott was incredulous. He was about to say something when one of the branches moved.

Scott looked closer, and realized with horror that they weren’t branches. They were arms and legs, severed from human bodies.

Scott blurted out, “What is this?”

The Conductor looked squarely at Scott and said, “Fuel. It’s what powers the train.”

Scott stood there, stunned. He had no idea what to say.

The Conductor was about to step out the door, but paused and said “The firebox won’t load itself.”

It was clear that he would stand there and wait to see that Scott would proceed with the task. Having few options, Scott went to the back of the tender, cautiously picked up an arm, and immediately dropped it.

The hand had tried to grab Scott’s wrist.

“It’s still alive!” he screamed.

“Of course it is,” the Conductor replied. “He wouldn’t feel pain otherwise.”

With that, the old man closed the door, leaving Scott in the tender, staring at the arm, quivering on the floor.

Against all his urges otherwise, he bent down and picked the arm back up.

It was… surreal. The arm was still warm, and moved slightly in response to his touch. Scott was certain he would throw up.

As he stepped toward the firebox, Scott wondered what he was doing. Even so, he continued, surprising himself as he reached for the handle to the firebox door.

Quickly, he opened the door, tossed the arm inside, and slammed the door. The clang of the door echoed in the room, which took Scott’s attention away from how the flame flared up as the severed arm began to burn.

That’s when Scott heard the scream.

It was a bloodcurdling scream, and Scott was certain that it couldn’t have been a coincidence. It couldn’t have come from the firebox, but as he stood there, Scott’s mind filled with doubt about what he had or hadn’t heard, much less where it came from.

Breathing heavily now, and horrified at what he’d done, Scott rushed to the door. He had to get out.

The way the arm had grabbed his was familiar. He’d been grabbed like that before, years before. When it happened, Scott had pushed the man away.

Scott’s mind raced back to that day. He’d been grabbed by a bum who hung around the station near Scott’s house. When Scott pushed him away, the bum had stumbled back through the crowd on the platform, and fallen off the platform and onto the rails.

Everyone just assumed that the bum had stumbled and fallen on his own. Scott never admitted to anything. He quietly ignored the flurry of news reports that had followed about the highly decorated vet that had fallen on hard times, and tragically landed on the third rail, and moments later been hit by an express train passing through the station.

Now, trying desperately to get out of this nightmare, all he knew was that he had to get out of the tender. He had to.

Just as he reached the door, it opened, and the Conductor stepped up and in. His eyes were fierce.

His voice growled, “Load the firebox. We need to leave the station.”

Scott stood his ground, and said, “I can’t… I won’t.”

Scott shoved the Conductor in the chest in an attempt to get to the door. Somehow, his shove never quite connected.

With a surprisingly quick movement of his right arm, the Conductor grabbed Scott’s wrist, held it in between their faces, and jammed Scott’s thumb into a silver mechanism that looked almost like pruning shears. Scott’s thumb was stuck through a hole in the end, with blades on either side that connected to the handle.

“Perhaps,” the Conductor began, “you’ll make good fuel. Heinous sins burn even more intensely in the firebox. How much power do you think one of your fingers would generate, Mr. Kramer?”

His eyes had been locked onto Scott’s the whole time. Scott realized at that point that the Conductor never blinked.

“OK,” Scott blurted out. “I’ll do it.”

With that, the Conductor dropped Scott’s hand and deftly slipped the silver mechanism back into his pocket. He stepped down the steps and out of the tender, closing the door behind him, and leaving Scott to his morbid task.

Now, Scott was determined. He would load the arms and legs into the firebox, and wouldn’t let himself feel anything. He had little choice.

He went to the back, grabbed a leg, and began dragging it up to the front. Scott was startled how heavy it was! As he opened the door, the leg began kicking spastically in his hand, and fell to the floor.

Scott screamed .“Son of a bitch!”

He picked the leg up off the floor, opened the firebox door, and jammed the leg inside. As he did, Scott saw, quite clearly, the arm that he had thrown in earlier. Somehow, it hadn’t been fully consumed by the flame, and the blackened fingers were dragging it along the embers.

Scott slammed the door again, and once more heard screaming, but from a different voice. He tuned it out and returned to the pile at the back of the tender.

As he repeated the grisly task, Scott noticed that some of the limbs were female—or at least had belonged to a woman at some point—but most of them came from men. Scott wondered what it meant, but chose not to dwell on it.

As he was loading the firebox, Scott felt the train lurch into motion, and he felt a sick sense of having accomplished something. Before long, they were underway again.

Soon enough, he was down to the last arm. The firebox was roaring, and the chorus of screams had become just background noise to Scott. As he closed the firebox door, he saw the now familiar frantic scratching of a hand against the glass window.

He turned toward the back of the tender, and wondered what would happen next. As far as Scott knew, there wasn’t a passage from the tender to the rest of the train. Without more fuel, maybe they would make another stop soon.

“The rest of the train…” Scott thought to himself. “I wonder…”

He stood near the door, trying to remember if there was a walkway on the side of the door, or maybe a ladder to the top of the car. He couldn’t remember anything about the exterior. He’d been too distracted by the light behind him at the station.

Suddenly, Scott turned around and looked at the back of the tender. All of the limbs had been piled up against the back wall.

That doesn’t make sense. Why put them all the way back in the back?

Scott walked to the back of the car, and found what he was looking for. It was a seam, right in the middle of the metal wall. He reached up and felt along the top edge. There were three large hinges. It was the loading door. That gave him an idea.

Scott began frantically looking around the tender. He was searching for a crowbar, a tire iron, or anything that he might use to pry the loading door open.

Behind the firebox, he found a shovel. It was probably there for cleaning out ashes, but it appeared sturdy enough for his purpose.

Moving to the back of the tender, Scott slid the edge of the shovel into the seam at the bottom of the door. Feeling that it was solidly in place, he put his weight against the handle, and to his surprise, the door started to move.

Had he thought about what he was doing, Scott probably would have expected what happened next. Because he didn’t think about it, the sudden influx of human limbs through the now-open loading door almost made him scream.

Also because he didn’t think about it, the door opening suddenly caused the shovel to slip out, causing him to lose his balance and fall. He was almost instantly buried in still-moving arms and legs. Once again he wanted to vomit.

Scott suppressed the rising bile and began digging his way out. He wondered if this was what quicksand was like, as he was digging out of kicking legs, flexing arms, and hands that continually grabbed blindly onto anything that touched the fingers. He wiggled and fought his way to the surface of the shallow pile, amazed at how difficult it was.

With the sudden outpouring of quivering body parts now over, Scott realized that one of the legs had only partially fallen through the door, and was keeping it propped open. He moved quickly but carefully, fighting to keep his balance on the writhing limbs he was now kneeling upon.

When he first looked up through the loading door, all he could see was a ceiling and the shallow bin that had been holding the severed arms and legs. Rising, he could see, just barely, between the open door and the far edge of the bin.

As before, Scott probably would have expected to see what he did, had he only thought about what had been happening. He didn’t, and his revulsion and horror felt brand new.

The loading door opened from a small room behind the tender. However, it wasn’t so much a room as it resembled a torture chamber.

At the center of the room was a set of elevated tables. Strapped to the largest table was a man, with fresh wounds where his arms had been, and roughly cut stumps where his legs used to be. Although the man wasn’t able to struggle effectively against the straps without arms or legs, his torso was twisting and contorting against the straps. His head was strapped down too, but his mouth was uncovered, and he was crying and moaning in pain.

The near table had straps that appeared to have held legs in place. On either side of the main table were tiny extensions, also with straps, that apparently held the arms straight out. There were wide gaps between the four tables, making it resemble some kind of horrible, human miter box.

On the wall to the left was a variety of saws, and on the right were axes, all of the tools stained and discolored. They looked rusty, old, and horrible. Scott realized that he was becoming accustomed to the sensation of bile rising in his throat.

At the back corners of the room were two wide, closed doors, with windows at the top of each. As far as Scott could tell, the room was otherwise empty.

Feeling he had nothing else to lose, Scott reached up through the open loading door, grabbed the edge of the bin, and started pulling himself up through the opening. It was difficult, as he was continually kicking against the moving arms and legs beneath him, constantly kicking the hands loose that were grabbing his own legs.

As he neared the edge of the bin, his left foot slipped and kicked the leg loose that had been propping the loading door open. The door fell against the back of his right leg, just above his foot, pinning him.

The pain was excruciating, but short-lived. As Scott was trying to figure out how to get free, he felt the train slow suddenly, and the bumps and shudders that accompany the slowing of the remainder of the cars. The heavy loading door, bumping open slightly from its own inertia, was now loose enough that he was able to twist his leg and foot to get free.

He pulled up to the edge of the bin, hooking it with his left leg, and then fell into the room as the engine pulled hard again, causing the cars to lurch forward. He landed with a thud.

In a rare, pleasant surprise, the floor was somehow not covered in blood. How was that possible, given what obviously went on in here?

Scott scrambled to his feet, and as he passed the man on the table, the man’s crying subsided a bit. He looked into Scott’s eyes.

“Make it stop… please,” the man pleaded. “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry… forgive me?”

Scott had no idea how to respond, so he looked away. He moved around the table and to the door on the right. Carefully, he looked through the window.

This was the last part of tender car, and it was narrow—roughly half the width of the car, and it resembled a long hallway. There were about a dozen chairs along the outside wall, side-by-side.

Ignoring the moans and pleading of the man strapped to the table, Scott moved toward other door. As he neared it, the door opened suddenly, and the Conductor entered. He seemed only mildly surprised at Scott’s presence.

“I see you found your way to the processing room, Mr. Kramer,” he intoned.

His voice was almost playful—almost jovial. Something in the Conductor’s hand caught Scott’s eye. It was a meathook, like the ones Scott had seen used in slaughterhouses for handling slabs of beef and pork. Scott knew what would happen next, and didn’t want to watch it.

He heard the thunk of the meathook behind him, and the accompanying scream from the man on the table. He heard the buckles of the straps clang against the sides of the table, and then the sickening thud of the man’s body hitting the floor.

“There’s no blood,” Scott said suddenly. “How is there no blood?”

The Conductor came up next to Scott, dragging the torso behind him with the hook. He opened the door with his free hand.

“Eternal bodies don’t bleed, and don’t die,” the Conductor told him, and then proceeded to drag the body through the door.

Unable to stop himself, Scott looked through the window to see where the Conductor was taking the body. This half of the back of the car had no chairs, and appeared to have a long, sliding door on the outside wall.

The Conductor unceremoniously heaved the torso past himself along the floor. He deftly flipped the meathook as he did, pulling it loose from the body, and turned back to return to the processing room.

Behind the Conductor was a pile of limbless bodies, all alive, and all in agony. Scott realized that this is where the screams had been coming from as he’d burned the arms and legs.

The Conductor returned through the door, hanging the meathook on an empty spot on the wall and began cleaning his hands at a small sink. The cleaner. That was what Scott had smelled on him before.

Feeling the train slowing again, but more dramatically this time, Scott supposed they had arrived at the next stop. He wondered how many hours he would be spending in the tender, torturing these poor souls, limb by limb.

Breaking the silence, Scott said “I guess I should get back to the tender and load the firebox.”

“Oh no. That won’t be necessary,” the Conductor replied. “Just relax and have a seat on the table. I’m sure you’ll give us plenty of power for the next trip.”

With that, the Conductor smiled, and firmly placed his hand on Scott’s shoulder.

Inevitable

adjective

unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary: an inevitable conclusion.
sure to occur, happen, or come; unalterable: The inevitable end of human life is death.

noun

that which is unavoidable.

Crossing

Revenge

That night, I saw Stu approaching the train crossing. His old Buick had acted like it was going to stall. “Train Kept a Rollin'” was blaring from the radio. I smiled at the irony as Stu angrily smacked it off.

“Come on you hunk of junk!” he yelled.

He belched the belch of too many beers, and I could see that he was nudging the gas as he braked to keep the engine running. The crossing gates were going down.

Perfect, I thought. Right on time.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself.

This was my chance. He obviously didn’t want to wait for a train.

“You can make it…”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Stu looked around the car, uncertain if he’d said them or not.

I had nudged him.

He looked past the tree line, but all he could see was the sweep of the engine’s light, coming down the track.

”Go!”

Stu just about jumped out of his skin. I could tell by the expression on his face that if he hadn’t felt his own mouth forming the word, he’d have sworn someone had yelled it into his ear.

Someone did.

Me.

The train was coming around the curve. If he was going to go, now was the time.

As I hoped he would, Stu stomped the gas. The huge V8 roared to life. The tires squealed and the old Buick lunged forward toward the tracks and around the gate.

That’s when the engine stalled, exactly as I’d planned.

The last thing Stu saw was the blinding light from the train.

The last thing he heard was the roar of the train, the blaring of the horn, his own voice, screaming at the flooded engine, and my laughter, somehow filling his head.

The last thing he felt was burning, searing pain, but it was over in an instant—too quickly for my taste.

The Push

When most people think of trains, the word that often comes to mind is inertia. After all, it’s not unusual for a freight or passenger car train to weigh upwards of 8000 tons.

When I think of trains, the word that comes to mind is inevitable. There is something… inevitable about a train moving down the tracks.

Of course, things can derail a train from its tracks—cause a minor change of direction—but nothing… nothing will just bring one to a halt. Cars, trucks, even busses merely slow the inevitable procession of a train along the tracks.

I suppose it’s hardly surprising how little impediment the femur, the thickest and strongest bone in the body, presents to a train. Even two of them, hit in rapid succession, barely change a train’s velocity.

I know this because it happened to me.

That’s how I died.

If I have my way, Anthony and Sammy will go the same way.

So far, I’ve not been that lucky. So far, the best I’ve been able to do is get Stu, Anthony’s uncle. That was years ago, and it hurt Anthony. Apparently, it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t enough because I’m still here, stuck at this godforsaken crossing in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn’t enough for me. I want more.

I want Anthony to feel the shock of those muscular legs being severed. I want his ears to ring with his own futile, lonely screams. I want him to look down, like I did, and see his own blood pooling beneath him in a sickening puddle of crimson inevitability.

I want him to know that death is coming, and there’s not be a damn thing he can do about it.

I don’t care how Sammy goes.

Sammy’s a follower. He always was a follower. Sure… I’d love for him to follow Anthony, right along into death, but I don’t really give a rat’s ass about him.

But Anthony? I want his pain to last. I want it to be slower than Stu’s death. Much slower.

After all, he’s the one who pushed me.

Skylark

I got lucky with Stu. I recognized his Buick as soon as he neared the crossing. Anthony had always bragged about “Uncle Stu” getting him beer at the package store, and being cool enough to not say anything about it.

He also wouldn’t shut up about Stu’s car, a ’72 Skylark. It was clean and looked innocent enough, but the throaty rumble of the 455 engine was impressive. It seemed a shame to time my “Go!” with the natural rhythm of the engine to make it flood. I felt worse about destroying the car than about Stu’s fiery death.

I guess that says something about what I’ve become.

The Smile

I don’t remember much of anything anymore. I don’t remember what year it is, or how old I would be, but I remember that night, very clearly.

I don’t know if it was Anthony’s idea to go to the party or not, but it doesn’t really matter. Nobody twisted my arm. I wanted to get drunk like everyone else did, or at least make them think I wanted to.

I remember the blonde that Anthony wanted. I don’t remember her name. I wish I could forget her face. Her face was sweet, and innocent.

Anthony looked at Sammy and me as he was filling her cup with jungle juice. “Boys, I’m gonna have some fun!”.

I remember how he laughed about it.

If I’d really cared, I’d probably have said something, but I didn’t think Anthony would really do anything to the blonde. He had scholarships waiting for him at the end of the year. I couldn’t imagine he’d put that at risk.

I was wrong.

I should’ve left, or maybe just sat in the living room, trying to figure out how to talk to Heather, a brunette from Physics. She was smarter than any of the other girls. I think she was the only other person there who wasn’t wasted.

I remember being too nervous to make small talk with her, so I went to the basement, trying to find Anthony and Sammy.

I wish I hadn’t found them, but I did, and it made me sick to see what Anthony was doing to the blonde while Sammy covered her mouth. It was worse when her innocent face looked at me, eyes pleading for me to do something… anything.

Instead, I ran. I left the party and started running for home.

I should have kept running. I should have crossed the tracks and just gone home.

Instead, I stopped when Anthony caught up with me and listened to him as we stood at the tracks. He flashed that smile… the one that got the blonde to trust him. I remember that smile.

And then I remember the train.

I can still feel the push on my chest, me stumbling backward, and the feeling of my foot twisting between the track and the railroad tie. I can still feel the way the rails and the ground shook.

I remember the shriek of the wheels skidding on the rails, the blinding pain, and feeling my body flying through the air.

I remember landing in a ditch and trying to crawl, but not being able to move.

I remember the sound of the train passing, growing fainter, and hearing Anthony’s voice over the sound of Sammy puking.

“Problem solved,” he said evenly.

I remember hearing them get in Anthony’s Mustang, but me not being able to breathe, much less scream. I couldn’t breathe because I was drowning in a puddle of water under my face as they drove away.

Then I remember realizing that it wasn’t water.

It was blood.

The Nudge

At first, I felt weak and lonely. Then, I started to realize that, even though I seemed bound to the area around the crossing, I could make my voice heard.

Sort of.

Have you ever been walking near the edge of cliff, and thought, “One wrong step and I’ll plunge to my death.”

Or maybe you’ve been driving a curvy mountain road, with no guard rail, and thought “If I were to suddenly jerk the wheel to the right… all it would take is a muscle twitching the wrong way to kill me.”

People have those feelings all the time, and generally dismiss it as their imagination.

In fact, it’s usually a voice like mine, just playing with your head to see what you’ll do. That’s what I did.

That is, until one day when a muscle twitched, the car swerved to the right, and then it went off the dirt road that runs beside the tracks. That’s when I knew they could hear me.

That’s when I knew I would have my revenge. Revenge is what will release me from here. I’m sure of it.

All I had to do is wait for the right time.

Luck

Is it possible for me to feel lucky? My existence, if that’s what you call it, is such that it’s hard for me to feel anything but bitterness.

Then, without warning or fanfare, it was the right time. Finally, Sammy and Anthony were together, in the same car, and were getting close.

I could feel it.

How was this happening? It felt like a dream, a horribly dark dream, come true. I had been calling for them… beckoning them to come back.

It felt like they were early for the Norfolk Southern out of Pittsburgh. Could I delay them somehow?

I listened intently. I couldn’t feel or hear any anything coming down the line.

Now I was feeling helpless. I saw them approach the crossing, and then pull off to the side.

Sammy was driving. He turned off the engine and got out. I don’t know how long it’s been, but he looks old. I almost feel sorry for him.

Anthony got out of the passenger side, and slowly hobbled around. Whatever he became after high school, it didn’t leave him much. He favored his right leg the way former athletes sometimes do. Every swing of his bad leg reeked of bitterness.

Sammy went to the back and opened the trunk.

Anthony was holding a makeshift wreath. “Miss You, Man” was crudely written on a placard in the center.

So that’s why they came back. They’re here pay respects to the old, drunk bastard. But why tonight? Why now?

It doesn’t matter. They’re here now.

Sammy pulled out a case of beer and they crossed the road and headed toward the spot where Stu’s Buick had been pushed off the track. Fitting… they’re gonna get drunk.

The Hand

It felt like they were drinking and laughing forever. It must have been an hour or more. They told stupid stories of getting drunk with Stu, of his exploits with women and drag racing.

Anthony had a bottle of Jack and took a long swig. He handed it to Sammy.

“They just don’t make guys like that anymore,” Anthony declared as Sammy drank.

Anthony put the bottle away and they both sat there, looking at the stars and how bright everything looked. The moon was so bright that they could see each other’s face clearly.

By now, the only sound was of the two of them popping open another beer, guzzling it down, and belching absent-mindedly. Other than the gurgling sounds of their excess, the night was silent.

That sound gave me an idea.

I drifted over to the other side of the tracks. I wasn’t really close to the ditch where I’d taken my last breaths, but I was close, and I wondered if it would be close enough.

“Please… somebody… help me!” I cried.

“Did you hear something?” Sammy asked.

Anthony did, but he didn’t want to admit it. “No. It’s your imagination. Shut up and drink.”

I gave them a few minutes, and then spoke again. “Sammy? Are you there? Don’t leave me here.”

Sammy dropped his beer. Even in the pale moonlight, I could see the blood had drained from his face. He was shaking.

“Anthony? That sounded just like…”

Sammy’s voice drifted off.

Anthony answered, “Like who… what’s-his-name?”

“Bobby,” I growled.

Anthony went back to his beer, thinking it was Sammy that spoke and not me. “Bobby… Billy… the clumsy dipshit got what he deserved.”

Sammy was barely listening to Anthony now. I had his full attention, and I played it—hard.

“Sammy, are you there? I’m bleeding… call someone… please don’t leave me here!” I poured emotion into my voice.

He started toward the tracks, looking to see if he could see anything. He was mesmerized, almost in a trance. Now I just had to hope for the timing to work out.

“Sammy… I don’t blame you. I really don’t. Please call someone… don’t leave me here to die, Sammy!”

By now, Anthony was starting to admit to himself that he could hear me too, but he was having none of it.

He snarled, “Sammy, snap out of it you moron. You’re hearing voices. That means you’ve got a good buzz going. Now get back over here and help me clean all this up.”

That’s when I felt the faintest of vibrations.

It was subtle, and not the kind of thing that people normally hear. If they tried, Sammy and Anthony might have felt it, but their buzz was making it hard for them to focus on anything, much less the distant sound of a train’s horn and the telltale shake of the engine pulling a full load of cars.

Sammy was oblivious to the track, the distant sound of the train, and even Anthony’s growing insistence that he come back. Sammy was almost to the gravel that lay under the ties and the rails.

I could feel something bordering on excitement. This was a golden opportunity, and they were handing it to me. I might never get a chance like this again.

“Sammy, I saw what happened to Stu,” I said.

“You did?” Sammy replied.

That’s good. He’s talking to me. He’s treating me as part of his reality, and tuning out Anthony’s yelling more and more.

“Yes,” I said, “I saw what happened to him, and it was awful. Stu was in so much pain… just like I was. He cried out for help, just like I did, but there was nobody around to help him. Just like nobody would help me.”

Sammy was crying, in anguish, “No… I wanted to help. Anthony wouldn’t let me.”

Sammy was standing square on the tracks, peering into the darkness. He was looking for me, and probably fearing that he might see something.

The train was nearing the curve past the treeline, just beyond my crossing. I had to keep him there and try to get Anthony closer too.

“Sammy,” I offered, “I know you wouldn’t have hurt that girl… I know you didn’t want to hurt her.”

He stood there, shaking his head, “No… I didn’t… I couldn’t…”

His crying made him look pitiful, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.

“It’s OK, Sammy… I forgive you,” I lied.

His crying stopped, and a look of wonder came across his face.

“You do?” he pleaded.

Anthony, unable to reach the elevated level where the track lay because of his leg, was getting close to Sammy, and realized that his conversation with me was bordering on insane.’

“Get off the damn track, Sammy!” he screamed.

Anthony’s face was now being lit by the sweep of the approaching train. Sammy still stood, dead center of the tracks. I had to scream to overcome the sound of the train.

I laid it on thick, keeping him focused on my voice as the train closed in with “Yes, Sammy… it’s all OK now… nobody blames you for anything that happened.”

I had his full attention. He wasn’t even aware of the rumble of the tracks or the blaring horn.

I pressed on. “You don’t have to carry the guilt anymore. Just close your eyes and let all of that go.”

In a panic, Anthony was reaching up to try to grab Sammy.

“Sammy, you idiot! Get off of there!” he screamed.

A look of peace and calm came over Sammy’s face. I leaned in close.

As loud as I could, I nudged Sammy with “Take Anthony’s hand. Help him up.”

The earth shook as… inevitability closed in.

As Anthony made one final, awkward swipe for Sammy’s arm, Sammy turned and calmly reached down to grasp Anthony’s hand. He smiled a horrible, insane smile at Anthony and pulled him up toward the track.

When the train hit Sammy, he was standing just inside the rail. His body shattered with the impact, showering Anthony in a pink mist of blood and bits of flesh from his friend’s body.

The pressure wave from in front of the train knocked Anthony down to the ground, leaving him on the ground, still clutching Sammy’s lifeless hand, without the arm or body attached. He screamed.

I did too, because Anthony was still alive.

My chance for revenge was lost.

Lost

In the time since Sammy’s death, I’ve gained more freedom. I’m not strictly bound to the crossing anymore, and can move around some.

I can watch Anthony, which is good, I suppose. His world is now a hospital bed, doctors and nurses.

Apparently, the trauma of Sammy’s death had been too much for him, and he became catatonic. The doctors have talked about hope for his recovery, but he never seems to make any progress.

I wanted him to suffer, but instead he has constant care from the attentive staff. Bastard.

Jennifer

It was late, and Jennifer was ready to punch out.

First, she wanted to go up to check on Anthony. He wasn’t strictly her patient, but with seniority comes some leeway for a nurse to choose who gets a bit of special attention. Ever since Anthony arrived, she committed to coming by at the end of her shift.

As she stepped into the room, she looked down at his face. Even in catatonia, Anthony was handsome, and she could imagine him smiling. His was a sad, horrible story. All of the nurses felt sorry for the man who had such a promising future, then blowing out his knee before even entering college, and now reduced to this by a tragic accident.

She checked her watch, moved past his bed, and cracked the window near his head. Jennifer felt the cool breeze through the open window, and ever so faintly, heard the sound of the evening train’s whistle.

She looked at Anthony, and saw his body tense up with the sound of the whistle. His pulse started racing. It always did, and the other nurses had chalked it up to him somehow sensing a beautiful girl being in the room. She looked at his face, and saw the faintest hint of pain showing on his otherwise emotionless face.

As the whistle faded, Jennifer closed the window, moved to the door, and stopped to look back at him. He looked old. The years had not been nearly as kind to him as they had been to her.

Her face was still sweet and innocent, as it was in school.

Pushing a blonde curl behind her ear, she smiled and left the room.

I have friends who are (like me) theists, ranging from the theologically liberal to the most ardent conservative, and friends who are atheists (and Atheists). I am friends with several people who have come out as lesbian or gay, countless others whose family members fall under the LGBT umbrella, and I’m friends with a lot of people who are straight (like me).

Lately, I’ve found myself hearing parallel comments that I’ve found fascinating.

Stuck in the Middle

On Facebook, few subjects generate as much heat and furor as religion and sexual orientation. Not surprisingly, this is as true on my FB page as any, and possibly more so because of the number of friends that I have across these social divisions.

Within the realm of religious discussions, I will hear something like the following from fellow theists, in defense of their position:

• “This is what I feel and believe to be true, and this relationship is real. You can’t deny the reality of what’s in my heart.”
• “Biology can’t explain everything, and someday, scientists will figure out that this is real.”
• “Why can’t you tolerate my position? I’m not hurting anyone.”

These statements generally get an eye roll in response, or something along the lines of “When you can prove it with science, then we’ll talk. Until then, I reject this ‘relationship’ as a game you’re playing inside your head to justify things that you want to be true.” (Of course, there are valid questions being asked about whether or not people have been hurt by various theological positions, either by wars waged over theology, or by families restricting access to health care for their children over “religious” reasons.)

Interestingly, I saw something similar from a gay friend, in defense of his lifestyle:

• “This is what I feel and believe to be true, and this relationship is real. You can’t deny the reality of what’s in my heart.”
• “Biology can’t explain everything, and someday, scientists will figure out that this is real.”
• “Why can’t you tolerate my position? I’m not hurting anyone.”

These statements also seem to get an eye roll in response, with a comment like “When you can prove it with science, then we’ll talk. Until then, I reject this ‘relationship’ as a game you’re playing inside your head to justify things that you want to be true.”

Thank You, Captain Obvious

In the past day or so, Phil Robertson, of “Duck Dynasty” fame, has found himself on hiatus because of voicing his opinion of the morality of a gay/lesbian lifestyle. To be certain, Robertson’s reference to gay anal sex was extreme, but his views were hardly surprising, given the conservative theology that he’s made very clear in recent years. Why is there surprise that someone like Robertson would consider a gay relationship as “illogical”?

Of course, news of Robertson’s “hiatus” has been a rallying point for theological conservatives, as they are now petitioning for him to be reinstated. I find this curious, as said groups are regularly wanting to have people booted from shows for espousing ideology of beliefs that run counter to their sensibilities. Why doesn’t A&E get to freely choose the image they want to promote?

The news has likewise drawn praise from LGBT groups for being the right response to “gay bashing.” This is just as curious to me as the conservative response, given how painfully obvious it’s been what the Robertson family’s theological position is on other issues, and it wouldn’t take a rocket surgeon to extrapolate this to what they believe about homosexual or extramarital relationships. You may not like what Robertson has to say, but he certainly has a right to express his opinions.

Conclusion

As I stated above, I have several friends who are part of the LGBT community. They are my friends, not because of their sexual orientation, nor in spite of it, but for a host of reasons that are as varied as they are. In the same way, I have friends who aren’t theists, and their reasons for not believing as I do are similarly varied.

Because all of these people are my friends, I don’t tolerate anyone saying dismissive or insulting things about the LGBT community, lest my friends feel that they might be targets of attacks. Likewise, I don’t tolerate comments stating dismissive or insulting things about my friends who are atheists. I would hope that my friends who are theists, and want others to accept their “illogical” faith position as valid extend the same courtesy to my friends who are gay and are looking for acceptance of their “illogical” sexual orientation.

I say this, as a theist, heterosexual male that will never completely understand the emotional and social issues that accompany being gay, and who is so thoroughly immersed in “church life” that I’m largely unaware of how deeply it impacts my view of the world. I can try to understand being gay, but such an attraction will never make logical sense in my brain. I would assume that, in the same way, my atheist friends can try to understand my faith, but may not be able to make logical sense of it. For me, understanding (or even making sense of) a lifestyle has nothing to do with treating the beliefs and feelings of my friends (and people like them) respectfully.

Building a House with your Friends

While it’s true that you can build a small shelter with virtually no planning, very rarely do larger structures survive under their own weight without some kind of plan (formal or informal). Why?

Imagine that you’ve got a friend who’s a carpenter, who likes you and would enjoy working with you. Imagine that you have another friend who is an electrician, who feels similarly magnanimous toward you. Add to that a guy who took a plumbing class in vocational school and someone who knows how to mix up instant concrete. We now have a team!

“Let’s build a house!”

First things first… How much money do you have? What? The other guys don’t want to chip in? Why don’t they want to help you build a house? Don’t they realize that it will look good on their resume? (This is especially true of the “plumber” and your “concrete man.”) Don’t they realize how much fun it would be to come over and party?

Well, in that case, your only option is to put up the necessary funds yourself. So now you check the bank balance. You’ve got $5000 that you can spend without your wife sending you off to the looney farm. You say to yourself, “$5000 is a LOT of money! Surely I can build a house for that!”

At this point, anyone with even modest experience working with modern building materials will know that we can’t build a house for $5000. The raw materials alone would cost more than that.

So now let’s assume that we have $30,000, and have estimated that this is enough to buy the windows, wood, concrete, pipe, and electrical wire necessary to build a small house. You’re all set. Right?

The Plan

Right out of the gate, your carpenter and electrician are getting nervous. They look at you and ask for a plan. You hand them a drawing you made over the past couple of weeks. You note that you’ve done this yourself, even though you’ve never designed a house before, or even a small addition to a house. You have, however, lived in houses all your life, and know what you like. That qualifies you to create the drawings… correct?

Not according to the electrician. Until you can tell him where all the electrical outlets go, he can’t tell if you’ve got enough wire, or even the right size wire. It looks like you’ve got a big roll of wire, but it’s cheap stuff, and not really suited for the task. As long as you don’t hold him accountable, and nobody ever finds out he’s worked on this project, he agrees to proceed.

Unfortunately, now the carpenter is going off about the lack of detail in the plan. For some reason, he thinks that the spot where you’ve put the wall isn’t going to be able to support the weight of the roof. Now granted, this guy has built some houses before, but he’s never built this house, so you’re convinced that he’s just a whiner. Against your better judgment, you move the wall, but now that requires changes to the wiring and the plumbing. Things are not going according to the plan…

The Schedule

After several days of working in the heat, the carpenter and electrician want to know when the concrete will be done, and why the plumber seems clueless. For his part, the plumber is happy as a lark, and has now started promoting himself as an experienced home-builder who also does plumbing for new construction. He’s never done plumbing professionally before, but now he says he does, simply because he’s doing plumbing work for free.

At least you can feel good about yourself for helping your friend advance his plumbing career.

Sensing that a mutiny is brewing, you go off by yourself for a bit to figure out what’s holding up the concrete, and when you can put the electrician and carpenter to work. They have no real schedule from you, but showed up the first day and ate all the pizza you bought. For some reason, they seemed grumpy about the cold cuts and stale bread you picked up at the corner market for dinner.

At the end of the second day, they’re both wondering why they allowed you to talk them into this job. You didn’t want to blow your money on too much pizza like you did the first day, so you bought a smaller pizza, which barely fed the five of you. To keep everyone’s spirits up, you talk endlessly about the fun of having them over to your new house, and point to the various “rooms” in the vacant lot (where you hope the rooms will eventually be). Perhaps you could even submit your finished home to a show, and win an award! That would be a great thing for everyone… wouldn’t it?

On the morning of the third day, the electrician and the carpenter both call to tell you they can’t show. Both of them have paying jobs that they have to work, but they will see if they can come out next weekend. This casts a pall over the entire crew, even more so because you had bought several frozen pizzas for lunch that you were hoping would quiet the grumpy crew.

By now, the concrete man has poured, re-poured, and re-poured again something that looks like a foundation for a house. It doesn’t seem to want to set correctly, but at least the basic shape of the foundation is there. The three of you agree that the best thing to do is hang up your tools until the weekend. By then, the foundation will be set, and the rest of the crew will return!

The Construction

Over the next few weeks, the cycle continues, until you become so frustrated that you start making radical decisions. Forget the game room and the back porch. Those were nice, but it’s becoming obvious that the concrete guy was barely able to make the front steps look decent. By the time he finished the back steps, everyone will have long-since passed away in their nursing homes.

Having ditched those, you now have more time from the concrete man, so you ask him to help out with the carpentry. After all, he’s watched carpenters work, and there’s not that much to it… right?

After using up the best quality wood in the least visible places, you now find that all of the remaning wood (which will probably be visible) is covered with knots and splits. This is not good. When the carpenter (the real one) returns, he’s going to throw a fit at how bad things look.

Sure enough, the next time he’s available (which seems to be less and less, for some odd reason), he’s livid, and goes on and on about there being a reason that you asked him to help in the first place. He storms out the front hole (where the door might be… someday), gets in his car, and drives away.

The plumber seems tickled to death. Now he not only will gain valuable carpentry experience, there will also be more food!

The electrician sits around, waiting for the detailed plans you promised him two weeks ago. Now that you think about it, he’s done almost nothing to help build the house. Whenever you ask him, he just complains about the lack of a plan, and not being able to magically peer inside your brain to learn what the plan might be.

Those weird blueprint things you always saw on TV at construction sites are starting to seem like a better idea at this point. Unfortunately, the drawings you have don’t look anything like that, and your next door neighbor (who IS an architect) doesn’t see any way to take the drawing you’ve made and turn it into a blueprint. He says you’d need to start from scratch.

Finishing

In a mad dash of effort, over the course of several weeks, you finally start throwing anything and everything against the flimsy wooden frame, which now sort of resembles something that might have been considered housing, at least in the aftermath of some natural disaster. You’ve got a couple of electrical outlets, which get their power from a small, noisy generator.

The roof isn’t quite complete, but you claim this was by design, as it resembles an artsy, “open architecture.” The fact that you couldn’t afford shingles or sufficient plywood roofing to cover the tiny boundaries of the “foundation” have nothing to do with this. It was a daring and artistic choice. If you don’t look at it and agree, then obviously you are not familiar with (somewhat) similar, low-budget buildings made by great architects. (Unfortunately, the ones you can think of didn’t really do anything that looked like your house, but that’s beside the point.)

The house, or at least what you’re calling a house, is finished. It has walls. It has a foundation. It has electricity! It has a roof (sort of).

It’s a house… yes?

However, there are also arrangements and formations of puns, particularly in compound sequences, that can demonstrate the breadth of one’s vocabulary and intelligence. (I’m not claiming that this is always the case with the puns you might read here.)

Don’t Get Cross-Disciplinary with Me

Learning to pun means learning to watch for cross-disciplinary and cross-contextual patterns. Teaching children to pun, in my opinion, is fundamental to them learning, since watching for such patterns speeds learning new subjects. For a pun to be really good, there needs to be more than just an aural tickle–it needs to have meaning that works well in the new context.

One of the earliest jokes that I taught the boys was a simple bit of wordplay:

After finding a Genie in a magic lantern, a little boy says to the genie, “Hey… make me a milkshake.”

The Genie waves his hand, there’s a puff of smoke, and then he says, “Okay… you’re a milkshake.”

According to Wikipedia, puns are “a form of word play that suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.” Puns can be as innocent as “Pi/pie” connections, or as tawdry as a homophone of “hormone.”

Puns can even be found in research labs. One day, I was filming a researcher putting some (now dead) lab mice into an ice bucket and then moving it into the fume hood, when he offhandedly said, “Then… I put these guys on ice in the hood.”

For some reason, the image of a research scientist saying this, and not recognizing how hilarious it sounded, made me giggle uncontrollably. (I eventually stopped laughing.)

Now that My Sons are Fully Groan

Not teaching your children to pun puts them at a disadvantage. (I am dead serious about that.)

When they were growing up, my sons and I would regularly engage in “pun offs,” where we would make Pun A, then the other would make Pun B (which had to refer to Pun A). The original punner would then have to make Pun C on Pun B, which would lead to Pun D, and would eventually be quite Pun-E. When things worked well, the “topper” (finishing joke) would circle back around and connect Pun (x) to Pun A.

Over time, my sons and I would be able to spot the thoughtful expression on each other’s faces that signaled that we were processing something that had been said in our midst. Then, a new game emerged, which was a race to see who could take the “pun opportunity” and run with it. We would all get a good groan out of it, but frequently, one of us would say, “You should’ve said ____ instead,” which then encouraged us to ramp up our game a bit more for the next opportunity.

All of this, and I mean all of it, was intentional parenting and instruction on my part. You can lightheartedly razz me about this being cruel, but don’t expect me to ever have any regret for teaching and encouraging my sons to “love the pun.” Doing so taught them pattern recognition, which helps them solve problems in every area of their lives. Puns were never just by making people around them groan (or maybe laugh).

“I’ve Been (Re)Framed”

The “reframing” of information into a new context is at the center of all humor. Accordingly, the eloquence of a simple pun, especially when it’s conjured up on-the-spot, reframing fresh moments of social interaction with a sudden shift of perspective, is what makes me love them so much.