Maria watched a sparrow fly to the sycamore tree ten yards out, and then gazed out past it, down the hill and over the valleys and small forests of the moraine.

            “That nest has babies in it, I think. I think the mom had a worm in her mouth. She’s been back and fourth a lot, but she finished the nest when we were here in April. I don’t want to go and check though; she might get upset if she catches me near it. I heard that if birds smell a human on their babies, they abandon the nest. I don’t know if that’s just an old wives’ tale, though. I could see that being a made-up story that people tell their children so that they leave bird nests alone.”

            She sipped her glass of wine.

            “It’s not like we had a choice. My mother – well and your parents, too – none of them would have let us go through with it.”

            “I know, Maria. And I… I don’t regret that we did. It’s just…”

            “We had the window, and the window closed, and he made it. It’s really a miracle the doctors could take him out of me and keep him alive all that time, long enough to still be alive now. You know? Isn’t that amazing, Eddie?”

            “It’s a miracle for sure. It’s God’s work.”

            “And you know, I don’t know if I agree with them. I don’t think that he won’t have a normal life. Define normal? What’s normal, Eddie? Who can be the judge of that? He’ll have some sort of life. Any sort of life is better than the alternative, right?”

            “I think so.”

            “I do too.”

            “It’s difficult though, we knew it would be.”

            “I know. But… why… why can’t we have more answers… is this a test, Eddie?”

            “This is watery now,” he said looking at his drink.

            Eduardo spoke loudly toward the man coming through the French doors and walking out toward the couple.

            “Can I have a scotch please?” he asked, gulping down the rest of his whiskey drink.

            “Make it a highland. Neat, please. And, double, make it a double.”

            “Yes sir. Anything for you, ma’am?”

            “No, I’m fine. Well, you know, one more glass of wine. Pinot grigio, please.”

            “Very good, I’ll be right back with that.”

            “I don’t know if it’s a test, Maria, or just the way things are. We’re all different. We’re all His children. Some of us aren’t born with the abilities of others, but that’s the same as everyone. Everyone is different. Look at Helen Keller, how big her heart was even though her eyes and ears didn’t work, or Stephen Hawking, contributing to physics and the intelligence of humankind despite his physical disabilities. You know? We all have challenges, this will just have to be his challenge, and he’ll have to live with it. That’s just it. That’s all.”

            “Here you are, your scotch and your pinot grigio.”

            “Thanks.”

            “Thank you.”

            “You’re quite welcome. Let me know if you need anything else, I’m right over here.”

            “Besides, the church wouldn’t have had any of it. They wouldn’t have allowed. We would have been as good as excommunicated, and you know that.”

            “Do you ever wonder what it’s going to be like when he’s old enough to realize. What are we going to tell him?”

            “We’re going to tell him what happened. And we’re going to be honest, Maria. For fuck’s sake, what do you think we should do?”

            “Don’t get mad at me, Eddie. Don’t take that tone.”

            “Well, it doesn’t have to be such a secret. There is no secret, it’s perfectly fine. It’s not like he did anything wrong.”

            “I know he didn’t do anything wrong! Don’t you dare suggest that was my intention. Don’t you dare.”

            “I’m sorry honey, I didn’t. I didn’t suggest that. All I’m saying is that we need to be honest with him. He’ll start to ask questions at first, I’m sure.”

            “Hopefully. Hopefully he’ll get to that point.”

            “Yes, hopefully. But he will. He will. And then we’ll sit him down and we’ll tell him that when he was inside of mommy, he was sick, that his kidneys weren’t working too well. And that God gave us the choice to take him out of mommy and put him on support, and have some surgeries done, or wait and see if he would come out if we left him in. And we’ll tell him that the doctors said he wouldn’t have made it if we left him in. And we’ll tell him that we saw a cross on the nurse’s neck across the room and we saw it as a sign from our Lord.”

            Eduardo took a long, deep sip of his scotch and sighed after. Maria watched the mother sparrow fly away from the sycamore tree.

            “How’s your wine?”

            “It’s good. It’s sweet, which I like. It was a good year. Do you like your scotch?”

            “Yes, it’s smooth. I don’t like scotches that have a strong peat or smoke flavor.”

            “We have different taste buds. I don’t knowhow you can drink the stuff.”

            Eduardo closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, feeling the summer sun against his face. Maria stared at him fondly, and when he opened his eyes again he noticed her.

            “We’ll have to tell him that he was on support for a very long time, which is why other kids might be bigger. He couldn’t learn anything on those machines, Eddie. Not even those basic motor functions.”

            “I know that, Maria. You think I don’t know that? Of course I know that.”

            “I never lost it though. I’ve never lost faith. I’ve always had my faith, even if this is a test, I have faith that He’ll get us through.”

            “That’s right. That’s what you need to remember.”

            “How… how do you think he’ll go to heaven, Eddie? Do you think in the end, whether it’s, God forbid, five years from now or fifty years from now –“

            “Well, he’s two now, and that’s a miracle. But yes, fifty more years would be a miracle. A fantastic miracle.”

            “I know! I know it would be! I was saying though, do you think he’ll go to heaven disabled? Or… slow or however you want to say it?”

            “I don’t know Maria. Who do I look like, our priest? I don’t know if Father Santo would know anyway, but I’ll tell you this much, however he goes to heaven, it’ll be a hell of a lot better than going to hell for being unable to rectify his sin. A hell of a lot!”

            He took a long slurp from his scotch, and let out a snort.

            “Eddie, he’s going to need kidney transplants every ten years. Poor little guy.”

            “Poor kid. It’ll be his challenge though. Not his test, his challenge. Life is a challenge, and he’ll have to live with it. We’ve been through this.”

            “I know honey. Everyone knows. You’re right; my mother said it would be difficult. We don’t have any insurance money left. I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to pay back all three million that we owe now to the hospital.”

            “It’ll take a miracle, and I think we’re all out of those. So, it’s better not to think about it right. It’s just better to live as well as we can, knowing it’s not going to change, and that’s that.”

             Maria finished her wine as Eduardo gulped down the last of his scotch, and stared off into the landscape together.

            “Eddie, you don’t think I had too much, do you? The doctor said that two glasses would be fine, and that’s all I had.”

            “Two glasses is fine, sweetie.”

            Maria’s chin quivered and her hand trembled as she set the wine glass down on the side table. They stood up, and she started crying.

            “I just don’t want to hurt her. He said she’s healthy and perfectly normal, and I want her to have a long, happy, healthy life with whoever is lucky enough to have her. I wish we could afford to keep her…”

            Eduardo leaned in to Maria and hugged her, rubbing her back slowly.

            “I know, Maria. Me too.”

She lay on the couch and her long blond hair lay in wisps on her face and throat. Her arms were limp and bent in a gauche way on her chest and her eyes were closed.

“I’m bored, babe. I need a change.”

Her hair puffed with each word she spoke. It fell off her face and down to the floor as she turned her head to look at Jack.

“I know, hon. I know I said that. We can take a trip. We’re too broke for Rome, though.”

“I know,” she said. “I can wish.”

“Let’s go to Maine. We’ll take a nice trip to the coast for a week. They have good food there. Fresh crab, fish… We’ll stay at a place right by the sea,” said Jack.

Jack typed at his desk, his eyes locked on the keys that he struck hard.

“For now I need to get this done, Jules,” he said.

“Maine is too cold. I don’t want to go there,” she said.

“Jules, can you make us some iced tea? It’s warm out. Not so warm that we have to put on the air, but warm. I’m warm at least. Are you?”

“No,” she said. She stared at him with blank eyes.

“Oh. I guess I can make some, then.”

“I’ll have some too, so I’ll make it. I’m bored.”

Jules got up from the couch and stretched. The shades were drawn and the spring sun poured through the glass panes of their flat. They could have heard the birds sing if the screens were put in.

She made the tea and put ice in it. She thought of when she and Jack first met; they went out all the time for drinks and hung out with friends. They laughed a lot then. They made plans to take trips and they saw most of the states.

Jack tried hard to hear what Jules was up to from the front room.

When the tea was cool, she poured them each a glass.

“Jack,” she said as she sat down in the chair next to him. “I know you need to write, but it’s so nice out babe. Can we take a walk to get some lunch? We can find some seats in the sun. We might need some light coats still, but it’s so nice out. It’s so nice that it’s not gray and cold. It makes me sad when it’s been cold for a while, you know?”

“I know, Jules,” he said. He stopped his work and took a sip of the tea. “This is great, thank you hon.”

He drank down the rest of it and looked at her.

“You’re so cute,” he told her with a smile. “And I’m so glad I’m with you.”

She smiled back as she looked down at the floor.

“I’m glad too, babe.”

“Oh, damn, that’s right. Here you go,” he said. “I got you a gift.”

He gave her the thin slips and kissed her on her cheek. She looked at them and she screamed.

“Jack! Jack!” she laughed. “Rome! You bought these? For us?”

“Well yeah for us. For you. Round trip. I don’t want you to get bored of me and of what we have. I don’t want to lose you. We’ll go in two weeks. For now, let’s go get some food and sit in the sun.”

***

There were big houses on the other side of the parkway, and two men sat down on a bench across from them and smoked cigarettes in the crisp fall air. They were walking down to the village for drinks. Mike pulled out a flask full of bourbon and he and Ryan took pulls from it and laughed about being too responsible to drive but not very attractive to girls without having a car. They made elaborate stories about the housewives of the doctors or lawyers who lived in the houses; that the women were lonely and would like the company of the two bachelors. The heard the singing – something about nessun dorma, tu pure, o, principessa coming around the bend, and they saw the man singing opera. The bachelors tried to contain their tipsy giggling as the man passed by them, pausing from singing. They whispered about him after he passed, and they decided to drink some more of the whiskey before following him down the parkway. Later that night they were thrown out of a bar for starting an argument over the dartboard and making lewd comments to a waitress.

***

The walking paths were brown and uneven and flooded from the melting winter snow, and two old women driving back from the mall commented to each other about how nice the spring was and how bright the red berries looked on the brown shrubs of the parkway. Marge said she was thinking of moving to Arizona once and for all because she was getting too old for the winter, and Emily agreed. There are only so many winters you can take before it’s too much, she affirmed. They drove past the opera man and they heard him singing through the closed windows before the sound of driving drowned out his performance. Emily asked Marge if she remembered her cousin Tony who would come down to the restaurant and sing for all the guests when he had too many gin and tonics. Marge laughed and recalled that he had a wonderful voice, and that it was too bad his wife divorced him because of his gambling debts.

***

The man who sang opera walked his usual route down the parkway. He was tall and big and round, and his brother always used to call him linebacker. It was dark and quiet that night, and he could hear the river through the trees bubbling. His voice was deep and loud, but he had been working on his pitch and breath control to sing the tenor aria. He belted out tremano d’amore e di speranza before he paused and nodded to a girl who jogged past him in the opposite direction. He continued with ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me even when he saw the dark figure of a fawn in the moonlight, staring at him from a small field between the street and the river. Everything was still, and he decided on a grilling a steak with asparagus for dinner when he got home.

I tried not to use a lame lie, like I was “off to buy smokes.” That would have been too trite. It had been done. I just left for work and had a bag stowed in the trunk of my car. My bag was blue. I tied up some loose ends at the job, got all my cash from the bank and caught a train to the coast. I hate to fly, so then I hopped on a boat for the rest of the trip.

I ran. I don’t know why.

Then the boat was a bird and I flew, and I looked down and I knew that the fall would not kill me. It would be the fast change in course.

There were lights, and I was on land. Waves crashed.

I did not leave a girl or kids at home… I mean, I’m not a dick. I just left friends and loved ones. Then time skipped six months once more and I had a pen and pad and told all the folks back home I was safe and sound and well.

It rained now and then, but at night. The moon was out at night too, on clear nights though, and there was more than one moon and they were close to the point where they took up half the sky. And the food! The fresh fish and shrimp. There was a plate of shrimp in sweet sauce that made me hate home more.

It all glowed. All the plants and fish and trees glowed in the night, through the rain too, like bar signs on a main street.

Most of the time I had no shirt on, and I kept a gun strapped to my chest, but there was no need to fire it. I just liked the way it looked, I guess.

I wish I knew what the train ride to the coast was like. I love the train and half the time that’s the best part of a trip. The cars and track sounds and snores and laughs and booze. The air gets a little stale, though, so I like to chew gum so I smell that.

Time skipped back to when I was six years old and my mom told me that I had a gift and that I should share it with the world and that I would be… but the words blurred. I would be.

I was back on the beach. It was day now, so it was hot and light out. I sat in a cloth chair and drank beer, and watched the birds that brought me there dive and call. Toy boats sailed past close to shore, but I was the sole soul on the beach.

I sat and basked and smiled in the sun.

The waves crashed, and the rain and the moons peeked from out of the blue.

Hey, man. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve last seen each other so I thought I’d drop you a line.

I hope everything’s okay with you. I mean, I’m sure you’re fine. A lot of people like you, so I’m sure you’re not bored or anything. You’ve always been sort of a wild one! We’ve had some crazy times together.

I’m going to cut to the chase – I know I haven’t come around lately, and it’s just… it’s because I’m trying to change some things. I’m trying to get to a different place, and you know what happens when we hang out. Like that time we were hanging out and got caught by the cops pissing in that school parking lot at 3 a.m.! Ugh, shameless. Luckily they just gave us a ticket… that could have been a lot worse. Or when we went off on that girl at the bar and just started screaming to everyone in the place that she had her eyebrows painted on. She looked creepy, but we were out of line.

Man! Some of those times make me laugh a little still.

But Whiskey, I need to grow up. I’m getting to old for that shit. After those nights, it takes me two or three days to start feeling normal again. Almost every time we go out we get in trouble together and I wake up the next morning bruised. Literally, like that fucking sprain that left my ankle black and blue for three months!

I’m not saying we can’t ever hang out again. I don’t want to give you that impression. But, only on special occasions. And we have to act like adults.

I’ll be honest… do you remember Wine? Actually, I’d be surprised if you do. We were all hanging out at a party a couple months ago. It was a great time, but we were pretty hammered. Well… I’ve been hanging out with Wine a lot more lately. She’s nice. She’s refined but she can also be casual too. She’s the kind of girl that can be a cheap date, but still makes you feel like you’re living like a king, you know?

Like any relationship, she can be sort of bitter and dry sometimes. She changes with the seasons and I like that about her. She’s an adventure.

I’m going to be spending more time with her. By choice. This is what I need to do. You knew this day was coming. If we keep living as we have been, insanity or death are the only options we’ll have in our futures.

Wine gives me truth.

Take care,

Alex

P.S. – Give Brandy my best.

When his speed topped out, he closed his eyes and turned off his lights.

The crash was swift and loud.

He was thrown from the car through the glass that sat strewn on the road. It made a path to the ditch a fourth of a mile up. The car rolled five times and the leaks seemed like blood that poured out of a corpse in the night. Gregg lay in the ditch near the road. His eyes were still closed.

A car passed by the scene and the man saw the wreck. He called for help and a flight for life came to take Gregg to St. Joe’s. Clouds hid the stars and it snowed.

“You should be glad he still has a chance. You should be glad he’s still with us. Thank God for his sake, and yours. By all rights his neck should have snapped.” said the nurse to the Redds.

“Do you think he’ll make it?” asked his mom.

“How’s his brain? Will he… will he be the same?” asked his dad.

“There’s no way to know. We just have to wait,” said the nurse.

“Why?” his mom asked his dad. “Why do you think… do you think he was drunk?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s worth the thought right now. Let’s just hope things work out for the best. Let’s hope he lives.”

Luck was on Gregg’s side, if you see it that way. In two weeks he could talk, though he did not have much to say. His mom and dad asked him how he crashed. He said he lost the wheel and it all went so fast that he could not be sure.

Gregg did not know how to feel. He did not feel blessed. He watched folks be rushed to his ward that died, both young and old. He did not know why he was the one who lived. He kept his eyes peeled for drugs he could take to try it once more. He knew he had to.

Gregg thought by now they would have found what was in his trunk.

“Get it? Get who I am? Guess? Who am I?”

Grace thought Zack was an ass.

“God, shut your damn mouth or else I’ll slap you,” she said with a sneer.

“I just made a joke,” said Zack.

“No, Zack. Jokes make me laugh. Fuck. You just make me mad.”

The rain hit the glass of their truck, and Zack stared hard at the drops that splashed and died. It was cold now, and the sun was low in the sky. Red leaves blew through the field of the park on Grace’s side.

“It’s hard to make you laugh, Grace. You don’t smile hon. At least not in the past month or so. Why not?” asked Zack.

“It’s not hard, Zack. It’s not hard, and if you think it’s hard, then you’re… well, you’re just a fag. Plain as day. That’s what I think. I think you’re dumb when you do that voice. And say those things. So there. What do you think I am?” she asked.

Zack winced.

“You’re just… well… mean…  a bitch, kind of…” He shrugged. “Why are you in such a bad mood? You… you just have a way to cut me down a notch with each small thing. I do one small thing, and you cut me down. I try; I try to make you laugh. To make you smile. I try to take gray days, like this shit, these sad days when it rains in the fall and we don’t have a clue what to do and I try to make them fun. I thought it would be nice to look at the park… but you make them… I don’t know.”

Zack turned the knob to turn on the fan and make it blow, and then he leaned down and took a smoke out of the pack of Pall Malls he left on the car floor.

“I thought I did a good Bush voice,” he said with a frown. “You know, he laughs like that. Kind of dumb like that. My fault.”

“No, it’s my fault. You have a point,” she said, as she looked out at the cars that zoomed by them. “The bull stops here. I should have said no.”

She paused as Zack turned to face her.

“This won’t work, Zack. We need to break up… I can’t kid you, and that’s the truth. That’s the real truth. Here’s the ring.”

“You can try, but let me pick out the right tool for you,” said my dad.

When I was a kid, I watched my dad toil in his small shop for hours. Once in a while, he would let me stay up late and help him nail boards or cut a piece of wire, or glue my mom’s things so they were like new again. Then we’d go home and I’d dream of tools.

“Here’s how you turn it,” he said, as he showed me which way made the screws tight.

“I know how to turn it,” I said with a sneer, “left for loose and right for tight.”

“Smart kid,” he said with a laugh.

It was like a dark crypt when the lights were off in the rooms down the hall from the shop and I was scared of them. The shop was hot that June night. There was dust all over the room, and it made a cone shape when it blew up and caught the light that shined from the bench lamp.

“Do you hate the dark?” I asked my dad.

“No, I don’t hate the dark. But it’s sure hard to see things in it. That’s why a lot of folks don’t like it. You just have to be safe, that’s all,” he said as he bent down to work on a board.

“God damn board,” he said as he tried to force the screw the wrong way. “This one’s stuck. Christ, come on!”

“You’ve got it wrong!” I said with a howl.

He looked up and smiled at me.

“Look at that, so I do. It was the weird view, I guess.”

“I’ll do it! Let me try!”

“That’s fine,” he said with a sigh. He wiped his face with an old brown rag. “We have to go after that one, though.”

“Oh, come on!” I whined.

“You heard what I said. Last one. Let’s not make your mom mad.”

I turned the screw the right way, and was in bed in no time.

It’s been ten years now. I had fun with my dad on those nights, and I look back on them all the time.

But how could I know? I was just a kid. How could I know it was him, of all folks? How could I know he was the one who made the bomb?

When I got to work I walked into my gray cubicle, smiling and greeting everyone along the way. I surveyed my gray desk and I checked the news. Then I got up, went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

“Every time! It happens every shit damn crap shit time I buy a lottery ticket! Every single time I’m actually, honestly, sincerely surprised when I don’t win.”

As I stared at myself in the mirror, I tried to figure out how I failed. I collected my thoughts, went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, sat back down at my gray desk in my gray cubicle and stared at the dim, discolored screen of my laptop.

“It’s my only way to the top,” I thought to myself. “And they’re wrong. Playing the lottery isn’t another way for poor, desperate people like me to waste money. It’s the only chance I have.”

I took a slug of my coffee and checked my email. My palms were already clammy from the beginnings of a caffeine buzz on an empty stomach. My focus was already misplaced from the disappointment of yet another defeat. I quickly went back to the news to read the story about a man from bumbleshit-sticks-nowhere USA winning hundreds of millions of dollars. I scrolled to a past story of a lawyer from too-expensive-for-me-to-ever-live America winning a few dozen millions dollars.

Why does it always work out that way? Someone is going to win. So why can’t it be me? Why is it never me? I can’t believe how many times another already-rich person or a toothless country bumpkin wins the lotto. The bumpkins are just going to piss it away on Bud Light and trucks. And the rich? Do that many rich people play the lottery? When is it ever enough? What happened to the middle class?

I slugged the rest of my coffee. It was piping hot and burned my stomach as it swished around, so I unwrapped four antacids that would be my breakfast.

I would do good things with that money, baby Jesus, so you should give me some. I would donate at least a little of it to charity and kids and hunger and things. I would start companies and keep hardworking Americans gainfully employed. I would find a cure for panda sadness. I would buy a boat. I know what mom says, and I agree. I truly believe that money can’t buy happiness. But damn it, money can buy me the time to better look for happiness.

Just then I watched a large chunk of smoke gray dust float down from the light fixture above. It dropped perfectly into my emptied cup and soaked up the remaining drops of coffee.

This is going to be a long life. I need that money.

Hello! This is my comic. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I’ve had plans to do this weekly comicslashblogslashother for almost two years now, and now I’ve sort of gotten around to it. I figured that this is the time to do it before I lose all desire. Before I decide to ride out the summer eating hot dogs and twinkies, and wash them with double vodka tonics – two slices of lime.

It turns out the summer in Milwaukee is taking (yet again) its sweet ass time to come around, so it’s making me all productive and junk.

A lot of times comics are funny! This comic probably won’t be funny. FYI. So if you come back and you read and couple and it’s not your cup of tea, you can turn it off. I’ll be hurt at first, but I’ll get over it. Eventually.

It’s a big interwebs out there.