Polite Fictions

The Alphabet of Regret: L is for Letters

In 1979 my family moved from the city to a seaside village, one of those places with a tourist trap waterfront grafted on to a necrotic mass of shacks and bungalows with filthy yards.  My parents went there to escape the crowding and expense of the city.  I was ten.

We bought a two story house with an acre of property, most of it swamp.  I quickly discovered I could hop from stone to stump and cross the swamp without ever touching the stagnant water.  Next to the swamp stood a little grey shed leaning slightly at an angle with a tarpaper roof and an untreated wood door clearly salvaged from some more ancient shed. A single window set in the back let in a beam of soft sunlight, but even so the shed was never brightly lit, the illumination somehow absorbed by the cobwebs in th corner. The inside smelled of mildew and motor oil. Wasps built nests along the eaves and underneath the shelves.

I loved going out to the shed but feared it slightly. Partly I feared the pendulous paper nests that wasps built every summer.  I feared the dust-furred Mason jars with inscrutable objects inside that lined the shelves.  Even the old broken pieces of equipment loafing in the corner gave me a complex thrill of fear.  They bore the stamp of long-gone inhabitants, people who led alien lives. Our family came from away, and even if we'd stayed there for decades we'd still be from away. The items in the shed were artefacts in a forgotten museum, and even though we lived there now and owned the property, we never truly owned the shed.

Eventually my father began to fill up the shed with his from away items: metal flasks of WD 40, a bright red jerry can, a weed whacker, blades for a table saw, racks of two by fours. The museum had been taken over, and only the smell of mildew and the wasps remained.

After a year or so my father decided that the grey shed wasn't big enough to contain all the wood that he was storing in it, so he used the wood to build a bigger shed. This one was roomier and cleaner and smelled of treated pine, with a rough splintery floor. The old shed went back to the wasps and the glass jars and the rough dirt.

By this time I'd picked up some friends from the neighbourhood.  Their names were Willie, his brother Duane, Derek and Darren.  We started to spend our afternoons in and around the shed, hanging out in there, staining the seats of our rugby pants on the dirt floor but safely out the upper-air wasp traffic (they ran the top half of the shed, we ran the bottom). Eventually we decided that we'd formed a club, and we lacked only a name to make it official.

Willie decided that our club name was to be The Cobras. He said he could even get us shirts with Cobras written on it. This was particularly cool name, I realized, because with a deadly name like The Cobras we weren't just a club - we were a gang. Ain't no one gonna mess with a bunch of ten year olds and their tilting-over shed if you see COBRAS written on the shed door. Especially when we all step out in our jackets with COBRAS on the back, snazzy gold script with a golden cobra poised to strike emblazoned beneath. We were a long way from smoking, drinking, drugs, crime, cars, girls, sex, and shaving, but the jackets, even a few shirts, were a head start. All we had to do was give Willie two dollars each. Within a week we'd be up to our upturned collars in gang chic.

I had to go through only a small amount of begging for the two dollars.

“It’s for our gang!” I said.

My dad pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and withdrew a pink two dollar bill.

“He’s giving the money to Willie,” my mother said.

“Think of it as a learning experience,” Dad said, and handed the money over.

About a week after we pooled our money, Willie showed up at the clubhouse with a white 3/4 black sleeve T-shirt, the kind that usually had AC/DC or Ozzy Osbourne transfers. Across his front, in blocky blue iron-on letters, ran the word C O B R A.

Willie sat down and pulled out a pack of Export “A” cigarettes.  He unwrapped the package and handed one to each of us.

“We’re a gang now,” he announced.  “We’re The Cobras.  We’re gonna smoke”.

He placed a cigarette in his mouth and waited until we had all done the same.  Then he lit a match and motioned us in.

“We all have to light our cigarettes off the same match”.

Duane held back for a moment.  His skull sort of sloped up to a point, and when he searched for a thought it seemed to increase the pressure on the sides of his head.

“I heard it’s bad luck to light all your cigarettes off the same match,” he said.

“You’re a pussy!” Willie yelped.  “You’re a pussy if you don’t smoke!”

Duane considered the options and leaned in to the match.  We lit them up and leaned back, clouds of foul-tasting smoke dribbling from the corners of our mouths.  I could feel the blood leaving my face and sweat beading on my forehead.

“Okay,” Willie said.  “I’ve got some stuff for us to do.  Darren, you bring your hockey sticks and your net.  Derek, you bring some darts.  Duane, you steal some of dad’s Playboys”.

"Why don't you get the Playboys?" asked Duane.

"I went and got us the shirts!" Willie snapped.

“You got one shirt made”.

“I got us the cigarettes!”

"There's no room to play darts in here," I said.

"Don’t be a pussy," Willie explained.

“I don’t know if I'm hungry or sick,” Derek said. Then he leaned forward and shot an abrupt jet of puke through the air.  We piled out into the bright sunshine and ran into the swamp.  My dad hosed out the shed.

That was our first day as The Cobras.

As the summer wore on it became clear that we were not getting our Cobras shirts. Nobody asked about them, but with every afternoon meeting the tension grew, especially since Willie insisted on wearing his C O B R A shirt all the time. The longer it went on the more defensive Willie would get, pressuring us to do more and more of the work and all but daring us to bring up the subject of the shirts. Eventually the B started peeling off, threatening to turn our club into the Coras. Duane grew sullen, staring into the corner as Willie outlined our list of tasks. Darren left early one day and never came back. Those missing shirts were slowly destroying our gang.

I didn't care. As soon as Willie had stepped through the shed door with that Cobra shirt, I recognized the huge gulf between what I had imagined for our gang and what our gang really was - a few kids hanging around a smelly shed. There were no purple jackets with gold emblazoning on the back, no great vistas of coolness. There were only a few old Playboys and Mayfairs, which in a fit of guilt I handed over to my parents. My dad spent the afternoon leafing through them at the dining room table, occasionally snorting through his nose.

The gang officially disbanded that day Willie's father Harold bought our shed. He had a plan to put it behind his barn and use it as a smokehouse. He ran a length of heavy chain around it, hooked the other end onto his truck and drove. The shed lurched and jumped through the air as if kicked by a great invisible boot. It thumped down on its side and dug into the ground, which was soft and damp from a day or two of rain. Even across the lot I could hear Harold swearing as he gunned the engine. After a few minutes he and Willie showed up with planks to wedge the shed out of the ground.

Willie had grown over the summer.  His body was shifting from skinny to lanky, and his chin was mottling with pimples and stubborn dark hairs.  He was still wearing the shirt, which by now said C B R A. A strip of tape held the B in place but the C had begun to peel as wel.  I figured Willie would finally throw it out when it read B R A. He lugged bright new chain and balanced planks of wood on his shoulders, like a yoke. We didn't speak.

After a lot of grunting and kicking, they had the planks wedged in under the shed. Willie gave me a nonchalant wave as they headed back to the pickup. They pulled away and the shed leapt free again from the planks, airborne and tumbling, wreathed about with bright metal, until it hit the ground once more, alternately bouncing along and digging in like a reluctant dog, until the truck pulled it out of sight. And that was that.

Kill

He'd been fucking around for the first and second period. Just pushing it. I mean, reeeeaaaly pushing the boundaries of "how far is too far."

He found out in a hurry. Like crossing some invisible threshold that lead from the Fun House to a Not So Fun House. He didn't even know he'd been headed that way. Silly motherfucker.

He knew though, when he found himself grabbed by his throat and crotch, his feet swept out from under him, and someone standing Alpha over him. Seething and sweaty. Teeth clenched and a malice deep seated in the heart. "Keep it up asshole. If you walk out of here unassisted it will be a fucking miracle. One more time, and I'll, serious as cancer, end you. Done. One more time. Gamble if you feel like letting the pretty girl blow on the dice. Go on. I fucking dare you. Give me a reason to let It out. You got me? You'd better - or you'll get Me."

After it was all said and done - maybe a shot of bottom shelf liquor, brown and hot, later - he thought about what some might misconstrue as what is commonly referred to as "Anger Issues". He thought about that as he polished off the second double-fingered offering form the bottom of the shelf. 'Fuck that noise, man. Anger is a fucking miracle gift.' Damn straight, Malcolm. Then, he thought of the line from the Breakfast Club. 'You mess with the bull, young man, and you'll get the horns.' Kinda make sense.

He chuckled to himself, gave his back-slappin' teammates a wave, put down two more ounces of the bottom row.....and blew.

Couldn't shake it. Cold sweats, cramps, restless. Dreams in Fellini colors. Cobweb thoughts all intersecting with no apparent rhyme or reason and dust in the corners and only the meal of two day old moth in the middle. What was this very strange sensation. Guilt? No fucking way. Felt more like shame. For what thought. Rehearse, asshole. Get passed the lack of O2 in your blood and think. There was work, then the kids, then pack your gear. Then 90 minutes.....Fuck.

That fella 3.5 hours ago. His face. During what the officials and owners of the facility called "an altercation" - his face is what was causing the cobwebs. Pure, white fear. He'd only seen that in the eyes of the animals on the farm. The ones they ate because they were poor. Or because they wanted to lead a very Waltons/Little House on the Prairie lifestyle. Mother Earth News and all that shit. More that they were poor.

So they ate chickens that had once been incubated in the dining room. They ate the pig that had followed them around the house as a piglet because of an ordering miscalculation. The rabbits that they named after characters from Watership Down - they fried those cute fuckers in cornmeal and ate the shit out of them with pickled beets on the side. They took squirrels from high in the tops of Walnuts and Maples. Ate venison while watching Bambi. Killing had sort of become, not so much second nature, but, had become "old hat". He'd seen it so much. It was a means to an end. Dog goes aggressive and sick? Threatens the balance? Travis gots to take that that shit by the reigns and cap Yeller while he's tied to the walls of the corn crib.

Killing. Fuck. It was so easy because it was necessary. You want to eat? Then you kill. And weather you pull it up from the dirt or a river, or put a bullet in it's brain -- it's all killing. It's ending something, so you don't end.

But that poor, scared, silly bastard from earlier didn't know all that. All he knew was that the roller-coaster had hopped the track and he was in trouble. Scared shitless. Couldn't even shit his pant and jump in and swim. Pure fear. He deserved to be smacked around a little. Maybe a lot. But that, that feeling that he felt in the 45 seconds it took for the officials and the rest of the team to pull his assailant off? No one deserves that. Well, *some* do. But not that poor fucker.

There was only one thing to do he thought while the cobwebs cleared and the cramps let go their iron fist. He had to apologize. He had to find that miserable fool and explain that he didn't mean those things. Well, not all of them. This was the Autumn of fear and rage. Winter brought slumber and clarity. He needed the cool, yellow rebirth of Spring. He went through all available avenues to track down his victim. You never kill because you're angry. Ever. You kill because if you don't you'll die. 

And you always pick up your spent shells.

He never did find that guy.

Regret. Shame. Guilt.

Give it a name.

The Alphabet Of Regret: J is for {Redacted}

They stood arm in arm; brothers and sisters banded together by virtue of character and devotion to truth. The bodies of the faithless lay scattered at their feet, as far as their eye could see....smouldering remnants of the personification of mortal sin, thousands of years of creation lay dying in streets and synagogues, under tables overturned in the earthly manifestation of the temple of our lord.

The sky spread itself wide against the blackness of night, revealing golden, celestial lights ruddied with flame. Rockets burst in the air; pyrotechnic displays of unmitigated power showered the land with embers of great vengeance and cinders of furious anger. These brothers and sisters, these chosen faithful, gazed with wide eyed wonder at the revelation that laid before them. Was it heaven or Las Vegas lying atop smoky clouds, arched back, writhing, wide open and waiting before them?

Deafened by the roar of holiest wrath, blinded by reflections of 3,000 years of original sin, the Chosen stood frozen amidst waves of destruction, awaiting the siren call that would part these seas of earthly rebirth and beckon them home. With hearts filled with righteous indignation and heads clouded with mortal doubt, they searched the private inventories of their lives for the balance sheets of validation.

Accounting for the price of discretion against the sum of virtue, each one of the Last weighed the accumulations of a mortal life riddled with yearnings of the flesh. The stolen cigarette after imbibing more of the blood of Christ than was necessary for that day's redemption, a hidden embrace shared by star cross'd lovers overcome by the beauty of God's creation,  a secret birthday wish for a child denied by God yet delivered by science, a plainly-wrapped gift laid out on the 25 of December without word or mention...these machinations of the devil, these manifestations of the inherit weakness of the human condition, these were but the lessons in humility on the quest to holiness. These must be the speed bumps on the road to Christ-like perfection.

Mustn't they?

Should one more doorbell have be rung early on a Saturday morning, annoying another lost soul into salvation? Perhaps another pamphlet could have been printed, left abandoned in a public laundry room to find its way to the right hands, the right heart, the right flock? “Maybe” is a four letter word reflected against the smoke and mirrors of belief that refuses to manifest itself, devotion hung solely on a cloak of perfect faith wrapped around a world, a body, a soul doused with the shit and booze and semen stains of temptation and desire.

Together they stood, bound to one another in arms, in faith, in belief in what was laid to rest this day and what will be born from the ashes of that life. As the world reduced like a cheap burgundy sauce over the heat of the lake of holy fire and brimstone swelling around them, they waited for the salvation promised to them after a life of near-perfect devotion to a God who’s face they’d never seen but who’s hand was in plain view on this, the most prophetic of the Last Days.

One meek voice lifted itself high to the heavens, singing praises to the Lord, and soon those brothers and sisters who by now numbered in the thousands all joined in raucous song, drowning out the chorus of destruction all around them, assuaging the wait until the moment that their heavenly Father would open that righteous hand and lead them home to the Promised Land. Fear began to seep in through the cracks of the hymns, restlessness soon took foothold upon the mount the congregation occupied. A faint murmur was spoken and extinguished by the throngs. Another was not so quickly put out. As the thousands of brows, turned upward to heavens, dripped with salty sweat and ash, the harmony of the songs devolved into desperate pleas, cries out to the heavens.

A shout resonated out, “Dear Jehovah, our father, our God, don not forsake us!” “We are here, Jehovah; we are waiting for you!” another voice beckoned into the darkness. The cries to God, to Jehovah, to heavenly Father, they grew louder...reverberated off the fallen buildings and smoldering bodies, filling the war-torn sky with an awful din of desperation.

With rapturous instancy, the skies went silent. The air stood still and calm, the remainder of creation came to attention in a celestial vacuum of time and space that enveloped the world for just a moment. With eyes raised to the Lord in silent deference, the final few looked into the black clouds parting before them, peeling open to reveal glorious golden light from above.

A singular whistle rang in the sky, bringing these brothers and sisters to their knees. A deep boom..sonic, shocking, rang out and filled the air. One small beacon of light rose high in the air, the pinpoint of redemption, and the Chosen followed it with eager eyes as it rose high, then began to decend upon their waiting brows.

That stream of red light grew closer, and wider, and bigger until the flames covered an expanse further and wider than any mortal could see or dream, and as it drew so close that the heat of it sucked the very air out of the world, a voice sent shockwaves to the core of the earth. This voice, the voice they’d waited a lifetime for, the voice that some secretly doubted would ever be heard, it filled every space and void with divine power.

“I TOLD you not say my name. Sheesh.“

*whoosh*

The Alphabet of Regret: I is for Me, Myself & I

We're all on board with the fact that I'm a big ol' drug addict, right?  No worries, I'm not pounding away at this keyboard, soon to be interrupted by the compulsion to smoke a joint, down a 5th of Jim Beam, throw pills down my own throat or pop some skin in an attempt to...

...an attempt to?

An attempt to feed the monster that is addiction.

Indeed, I've been clean for over two decades now and cannot even remember the last time I was interrupted by even a thought of feeding the monster.

Doesn't that sound goooooood!  Don't you want to be one of those people who goes to the addict they wish would get clean and say,

"Look.  I know this lady.  She's clean over 20 years.  Why don't you do that now?  Right fucking now, because I've had all I can take of you pretending you need money for..."

For what?  What do addicts tell people they need money for?

Baby diapers? The utility bill?  Books for school?  Therapy?

Yeah, all of that.  Active addicts know your tender spots and exploit them.  They know if thinking of a baby with a dirty diaper or imagining you living in the dark will disturb you more.  They know if you are thinking advancing their education or going to therapy will make them shape up.  Being high will never ever take away from the fact that a using addict is always capable of being the Dean of the 'Department of Human Exploitation'.

It's so easy to judge the proclivity using addicts have toward exploiting other human beings.  And yet, we've all seen a movie, read a book or seen something on the news about the behavior of human beings in hostage situations that have made us wonder...

What would I do if a monster held a loaded gun to my head, cocked the trigger, and said,

"Steal and then pawn your grandmother's wedding ring, or your fuckin' head is going to be on the wall behind you in a million bloody pieces."

And so it goes in the depths of active addiction; a gradual development of a core of self-centeredness based so deeply in a belief that not feeding the monster will end our lives that we will do anything.  Anything.  Eventually, anything.

What any addict comes into recovery with is a guilt that sits in a tiny seething ball of never ending production at the pit of our stomachs.  It leaks a constant and foul stream of reminders of all we have done into every fiber of our being.  Some of us, though clean from drugs, continue down a path of trying to cover it up.  Some of us try to sex or eat it away.  We smoke cigarettes, gamble, work 90, 100, even 120 hours in a week.  We read so many self-help books so quickly that we can't possibly remember even one tidbit of information from them.

Oddly enough, the worst response to all of the guilt is deciding we will simply be good.  But being good is never strong or able to be sustained if the motivation behind it is anything along the lines of, "I just don't want to be bad."

True goodness that holds the power to change a life, change a family, change the world, is based in simply doing the right thing for the right reason.

Being a truly good person is motivated by a desire to experience freedom and goodwill.  It is motivated by wanting to live a life without shame or self-loathing.

There are spouses who say,

"I don't fuck around on my spouse because it's a bad thing to do."

There are spouses who say,

"I don't fuck around on my spouse because remaining true to my committment enhances my life."

Yes, the result will be the same:  not fucking around on our spouse.  But one is, perhaps, with white knuckled devotion to being good, while the other is about enhancement, freedom and goodwill. 

Years into my recovery I sat in a meeting with 11 other recovering drug addicts discussing the the topic of humility.  Between the 12 of us we had almost 250 years of combined clean time.  We had, individually, spent years contemplating our own personal relationships to humility. 

In this particular discussion, we were discussing the nasty turns it is possible to take when attempting to follow humility.  We discussed the result of not practicing it enough:  Arrogance. 

And then we got stuck.

"I've got to remember not to toot my own horn too much," said one, summing it up for the rest of us quite well.

But the Greek among us was dissatisfied with this conclusion.  He was looking down at the paperwork in front of him, his brow furrowed and slightly shaking his head back and forth.

He raised his hand to garner our attention and said,

"This is so American, this business of not tooting one's own horn.  Yes, if our motivation is to remain above or better than other human beings, this is arrogance.  But what about when we have a skill, experience or quality that could be helpful in a given situtation?  In Greece we announce these things.  We stand up and announce that we have something that will help, and we smile as we are doing it because it is a joy to be able to help.  To avoid doing so out of fear of appearing arrogant to ourselves or another is nothing short of false humility.  It is false modesty.  It is a lie."

The room fell silent and a new door opened.  And then I began to announce myself.

No, I did not jump from my chair in that very meeting and list my skills, experiences or qualities that I believe are good.  But my language changed.  My presentation of myself morphed into something so much more real.  I began announcing it (and smiling as I did so) when I had information that might help.

And I became more free from the monster called addiction that would have me stop short, slow down, hush my mouth when it comes to announcing the truth about me; what I have and do not have, what I know and do not know.

And I became more free from the monster called addiction because I no longer share what I share about myself out of a desire to be good.  But because of a desire to be truthful and free.

The Alphabet of Regret: H

I don't remember much about my own experience except that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Not that you'd want graphic details anyway. I blame the non-remembering on a combination of alcohol and fear.

I think I'm not alone in this, this desire to get it out of the way and move on to the real thing. It's such a small thing, standing porter to the door of a new life. It is fleeting and fragile and it does not deserve the hype. Hype and hormones. I almost forgot to blame the hormones. We would not even be having this discussion if it were not for the hormones.

Do you realize how lucky we are to have some say in it at all? Another time, another culture and it would be locked and untouchable. Even now there is a constant power struggle involved. It is all about power, make no mistake. You lay down once and you'll get walked on for the rest of your life (or something which feels like the rest of your life). You see this happen to your friends, so you choose to stay quiet and fly under the radar. There is safety in invisibility.

It's lonely being so safe.

The pretty girls are never lonely. They seem to have the easiest time with it, except the blonds (who are completely screwed). We plain ones live in fear of the phrase, “what was your name again?” Pretty or plain, you must guard your experience carefully or face the gossip and lord knows what else.

You can't talk about it to your parents because it's awkward and they're awkward and frankly they don't want to hear about it. Can you blame them? They equip you as best they can so you'll make good choices and succeed in ways they only dreamed of. They pray quietly that you don't make the same mistake they did. And yet, their mistakes give us license to follow their examples. Or set our own course. It's different for everyone, obviously.

You know how people ask if you would do it over again? My knee-jerk response is “no, no, absolutely not. No.” Then I think about it and conclude it might actually be great to do it over again. To do it knowing what I know now. Being who I am now.

I would trust myself and be more compassionate. I would get a clue and not be swayed by the fast talkers. I would not take the easy route. I'd explore all my options and take advantage of all that was open to me. Or at least more of it than I did. I kind of blew it the first time.

I would think about my future and take control of it. That's what it's for, right?

H is for High School.

Alphabet of Regret: G is for Gargantua.

Professor Ezekiel Alphonse Horatio McFlurryphontos frowned deeply. He hadn't meant to harm anyone. Quite the opposite, in fact. He deeply and truly wanted to help humanity. He shook his head, deep in thought, and raised his hand-forged Spectra-Laser-Goggles , settling them high on his forehead.

Now, to be sure, many people saw his actions in a different light. They were, put simply, fools. Professor Ezekiel Alphonse Horatio McFlurryphontos knew them for the fools they were.

For example, he thought, didn't turning Mrs. Wilkinson into a small, self-contained universe prove beneficial? Of course it had! No one was hurt (except for Mrs. Wilkinson and the feelings of her family and friends) and the cause of science had been advanced by hundreds of years. Einstein himself could never hope to solve the equations that Profession McFlurryphontos solved, with the aid of what had once been Mrs. Wilkinson. Even now she advanced humanity's knowledge, swirling in the Post-Destrucionalized bell jar that housed her in her universal state.

But no, even then, the world had come to think of Professor McFlurryphontos as "a villain" or a "mad scientist" as if all scientists worth their salt were not mad, to the untrained eye! Pfah!

When the Professor solved the secret equations to ignite imagination into fire itself, where was the harm? Finland was hardly even singed. Granted, it had been all of Finland. At once. And everyone in it. But simple second degree burns, at worst. A small price to pay for Imagi-fire! But no, the world pointed and called for his head on a stick.

The Professor rubbed his tired eyes. Enough recriminations about the way others saw him. After this he had to admit that perhaps they had a point. It wasn't as if he had meant to harm anyone. He never did (the relatives of Mrs. Wilkinson would still disagree) and never wanted to. No, he simply wanted to further the cause of science itself.

But now... oh now. What to do. It started perfectly normal. Little Jebediah Sucrose Klienschtop came over to assist the Professor in his work. Jebediah thought that would include getting the clean test tubes and pet a few lizards (he heard the Professor had a large lizard collection). The Professor, meanwhile, knew that Jebediah would be assisting in the same way Mrs. Wilkinson had. DNA was the latest thing to obsess the Professor. He wanted to carve it, cut it apart and use it like so much Lego. Parts of that were easy, but other parts required... assistance.

Everything had started off fine. Soon the genetic splicing yielded results. Jebediah felt changes happening in his tiny body. Changes that he thought wouldn't happen until a few years hence, if his older brother was to be believed. But these changes were far different. He grew, he shed skin, his eyes turned a bright goldenrod in color... Professor Ezekiel Alphonse Horatio McFlurryphontos winced. The boy grew. And grew. And grew some more.

When he burst through the wall of the lab, the Professor knew he was in trouble. When Jebediah roared and ate the Post-Destrucionalized bell jar that contained Mrs. Wilkinson, the Professor decided to retire. But when Jebediah grabbed the town's radio tower and threw it in an arc that, the Professor calculated quickly, would mean it hit Sweden, the Professor wished he could go back and fix this somehow.

"I AM GARGANTUA!" roared Jebediah.

"No, son, no, you're little Jebediah Sucrose Klienschtop," the Professor tried, "and your brothers will be worried sick." Which is when the Professor found out that Jebe... Gargantua could also breathe fire. This latest experiment was too much. Maybe his whole life had been a sham. Just one failed experiment after another.

The light from the power company's explosion dazzled his eyes. Gargantua still raged. Soon, unstoppable, he would destroy the world. There was nothing for it. Professor Ezekiel Alphonse Horatio McFlurryphontos sat and waited for the world to end, knowing it was his own damn fault. If only he hadn't given in to every whim. If only he had listened to others. If only. If only. A chorus a thousand strong in his head, beating him senseless.

If only he hadn't let his imagination get the better of him. If only his imagin... ation... hadn't... The Professor leapt up from the floor! Regret was a meal he could only eat for so long. He dug through the rubble and found what he searched for. The Imagi-fire helmet! With that, perhaps, just perhaps, powered by his astounding imagination, the Professor would ignite Gargantua and save the world!

Then they would thank him, right enough. Unless they thought to blame him for making Gargantua in the first place. Always the way with those people. Blame, blame, blame, they never saw the big picture. Regardless! Professor Ezekiel Alphonse Horatio McFlurryphontos was off to try and save the world. Or, at least, not damage it up any further. He hoped. He would feel just terrible if he did. Well, if he damaged it up too much.

The Alphabet of Regret: F is for Femme Fatale

Before my father vanished, he warned me to never get my ass in a sling for a woman. He should have also issued a directive against letting her wrap one around my testicles.

MotherofGodthishuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts!

Speed dating, it's fun, you'll like it, my friends all said. The more women you meet, the more you increase your odds of meeting a nice Jewish girl to bring home to Momma, said my brother Marcus.

Stupid ass, Marcus. It may not look like it, brother, but I'm paying for your sins by letting my stones be crucified here.

JesusChriiiiiist! This is not the kind of screwing I signed up for toniiiight.

Yeah, Marcus, he never had his nuts in a vice. Figuratively, OK, I'll give you that, but never one actually rigged out of rosary beads that 90 minutes earlier glinted in the streetlight's vapor as they dangled from the rearview mirror of a Japanese hatchback.

Six months ago, Marcus let a priest in a nightgown that could have been stolen from Great Grandma Belyke's wardrobe pour cold water on his head so he could renounce Satan and 28 years of daily Torah readings and weekly guilt trips at Temple Shalveekvetch for the sake of a woman.

OK, an amazing woman. Marlene. Sweet as the rock candy our aunt used to bring us when she visited. A stray wisp of jet black hair always dropped from the heavens at just the right moment to coyly obscure her left eye and cheekbone. Luminous phrases flowed from her lips and also in the subtlest gesture of her long, tapered fingers. To boot, Marlene had the most awesome collection of vintage '70s New York punk rock vinyl and memorabilia, heavy on the family tree of Johnny Thunders. This package attracted Marcus like none he had ever known, and it sparkled with none of the shitska She-deviltry Momma spat out with the venom built up from two millennia of wronged ancestors and two decades of commiseration with other victims living within an eight-block radius of our crumbling brownstone version of the Holy Land.

And Marlene loved Marcus with a devotion lacking the treacle that so often drips from young lovers. Instead it radiated like the invisible waves of heat rising and expanding from fireplace coals that restore a man who's returned from a long, barren winter's hunt. Marcus basked in this and, voluntarily, he gave up his faith for her. The prospect of never again having to spend a Saturday Shabbat locked in the house in prayerful contemplation with the gaggle consisting of the ancient, the abandoned and me only hastened this divine intervention.

Eeeeeeeegod, I think I have foreskin again!

She was Number 159.

Her auburn ringlets glowed from across the room, immediately giving away that this was not her usual crowd. When she sat at my table, a pair of pale green eyes sucked me in like virgin pulmonary sacs latching on to that first smoky sweetness of nicotine.

Nice Jewish girl for Momma, my balls.

MyGoddamnachingballs!

She said, "Hello, there. I'm Kathleen."

I heard, "Jackpot."

The Alphabet of Regret: Eating. It's how it started.

She totters carefully toward the table, oblivious to the stares from restaurant patrons. Everyone is staring -- everyone, even those who are usually too polite. Even the ones who know better can't help themselves.

She stands out. In some ways, she looks every bit the part of an aging Hollywood starlet-- with oversized sunglasses perched atop her nose, she's expensively dressed with an Hermes bag here, a peanut-sized diamond there. Even her hair appears gilded, her highlights glinting in the dim light. She moves slowly, leaning on a man--her husband, they wonder?--for help as she waits to be seated.

She's beautiful--or was, at any rate, that much is clear. In her early sixties, her fading beauty is still evident. Her fine cheekbones cut a flattering shape above her angular chin. She turns into the fading sunlight, giving the room a better look at her eyes, expertly made-up to showcase their unusual hue. A bright green-blue, the exact color of the Caribbean, flecked with--what else?--a rich gold.

They're distractions--good ones--but they're not enough.

They can't hide the bruises on her legs, the ones caused not by trauma, but from a devastating lack of vitamin C. Nail polish can't conceal the brittle nails from years of systematic malnutrition. Her pants, though beautifully cut and prohibitively expensive, would be around her ankles if not for the distended belly--the kind usually seen on advertisements for African children who need salvation. Bejeweled sandals cannot distract from the sagging skin, worn thin not from age, but from a slow, deliberate starvation.

Then there are the things they can't see; the things that remain hidden. The changes, wrought slowly over the years, in her relationships as her obsession with perfection consumed her. The seven-bedroom house begging to be filled with grandchildren that she couldn't bring herself to risk sharing for fear of the inevitable mess children bring. The strained conversation with her son as he asked her to please, please, to hold his son--her grandson, the first in the family. She can't, she begged off. He's too heavy. And he was--at nearly ten pounds, he'd have snapped her pretzel-thin arms like dry winter branches. Besides, the truth was, she didn't much care. He'll just make a mess, she thought to herself. I've worked too hard for this.

She leans back, taking in the scene in the restaurant.

Everyone is looking, she thinks. Perfect. I am perfect.

The Alphabet of Regret: D is for Dirt Daubing

I was the life of everyone’s parties, wry and funny, self-assured and expansive. I strove to include, to uplift, to engage. When I was in their company, no one was allowed to be left out. I never sought my social footing in any group. I was happy and secure; I can assure you with unflinching honesty that is not some wishful construct of my very healthy imagination.

In the here and now, though, it’s merely an act. I am busy redirecting attentions so that the more savvy among your number won’t see my Truth.  For instance, I will show you my insane so you won’t see my stupid. I will crack wise so you won’t catch my pain.

If my ribcage is seized with laughter, maybe you won’t be inclined to notice that my heart is just a bloom of bruise in my chest.

I don’t exactly know when this happened, when I started mingling the sweat of my own fear with the soil of every potential hurt. I couldn’t necessarily even tell you when I began daubing this not-quite-mud on myself; I just know that beneath its many layers I’m not feeling the satisfaction of insularity that I once thought I would.

It seems I have caused myself the greatest harm by trying to protect myself from hurt at the hands of others. For every single emotional encroachment or mental barb someone might chance to conceive, I have manufactured a dozen with which to punish myself. In fact, I have become so adept at self-punishment that I have now reached the point wherein my brain --with a greater and greater frequency as of late-- just up and betrays me.

It’s as if there is always a great hand hovering above my head, one which often takes a notion to lovingly stroke my hair. It then gently rests its palm on my crown, tempting me into the romance of sadness. As I relent (and when it’s too late), I realize that there is more to this scenario than a gentle moroseness and quiet, rocking melancholy.

My realization sets the hand in motion and now there are claws being dug deeply into my frontal lobe; they rake with purpose across my brain, deep fissures of burbling infection being crafted even as I am steeped in awareness.

Each time this occurs slivers of bone populate the valleys that have been carved into the tender places…places which had no business being laid open to the stagnant air that whispers across them. I’ve begun to anticipate a time when I will be composed solely of that darkness which resides at my center, because it has started pulsing steadily outward. I have to do something now, before I have forgotten completely that I should be terrified at the prospect of reaching the center of Nothing.

I’ve told you the machinations of how I came to be my own worst enemy. My question to you now is ‘How then do I stop?'

Alphabet of Regret: C is for Cowboy

He said he was a cowboy and she laughed. Loudly and for several minutes until she realized she was the only one in on the nonexistent joke. Didn’t boys usually outgrow this phase? Her hips hit the compass points as she spun a quick circle around the bar and took in the collection of preppy boys and girls in Greek letters. “Looks like you’re the Lone Ranger here,” she said when she returned north. “Yes ma'am” he said. She thought she might start laughing again.

What the hell. She’d watched enough westerns growing up to not help but find herself attracted to the idea of a cowboy. His glass came down and his hand went up to the hat she'd eventually come to rarely see him without, and then only for the obvious reasons like funerals and sex and sometimes not necessarily even for those occasions. His index finger popped out from under his thumb and he tipped the hat, which was of the cowboy variety - “So perhaps that makes it official,” she thought - then tugged it back down to tap that same bullet of a finger along the curved edge.  “At your service, missy," he said. Drawled. She liked to say he drawled. The lines radiating around his eyes when he spoke seemed to affirm this was a man more interested in cattle counts that were higher than any SPF, so if a cowboy was what he said he was, a cowboy he would be.

Would it come off enticing if she made a joke about how her name wasn’t Missy or the fact his hat was black. “Isn’t it always the bad guys who wear black hats?” She practiced the words in her head while watching him drown his drink, then bit her tongue against the melting cheese she swore was resting there. The opportunity to label him a villain would come later and for a variety of reasons. Her favorite would be when she’d talk him out of breaking into Last Call Liquor after they’d closed the bars. “I’ve seen pictures of Bonnie and Clyde’s last stand,” she’d sigh, staring out the window of his idling truck at the busted sign on the liquor store’s door. “I don’t know about you, but I, for one, don’t look particularly good in red polka dots.” The cowboy couldn’t farm for anything, but he could milk the hell out of a drunken night. Another time would be the 3 a.m. phone call that wrecked her. For now, however, black looked good on the cowboy and she’d had just enough cups of pink nectar to think she wanted him to be one of the good guys.

“You’re such a girl," he’d say when they’d eventually come back to this place, and his eyes would roll over the lip of his bourbon. She'd lap the last drops of her very girlie drinks and drag skewers of fruit through her teeth and smile. “Lucky for you," she’d drawl, because either the drinks made her or she liked to say she did. They didn‘t fit, which would eventually become as obvious as the fact he wasn’t really a cowboy, but not for the next year and then for awhile more after that. At this moment though, she knew from the first tip of his hat that she wanted them to, so when the DJ flipped the order of the bass and the lights, she leaned into him and massacred a string of words that ended up sounding enough like “So, you got your horse outside?” that she laughed when he told her no, he’d opted instead for the Ram.

Five days later, they’d drive around in that pick up truck and she'd listen to him talk, thinking about how maybe she could do that for the rest of her life. Silly. Three weeks after that, while hanging on tightly to the end of every  'darlin', 'puddin’, 'dumplin’ (seriously) and other endearment he’d taken to calling her that had misplaced its G, she lost something of her own in the cab of the Dodge. If that wasn’t grounds for one of those country songs he was always listening to, she thought, it would have been good enough for Bon Jovi to sing about. “Like Bon Jovi going country is ever going to happen,” she laughed.

Being with him made her do stupid things. Like think of country songs and believe him on the nights he’d talk about how they’d have a place and he’d set the sun while she’d write the books. Four months later, he only tolerated her music while she was collecting cassettes by country singers who carried on about ne’er do well friends residing in downward locales or lamenting unfortunate luck in love, and attempting to break in black cowboy boots she secretly admired each night when she’d kick them off into a corner of her room. He chided her when he’d seen the pink and red hearts stitched into the black leather. “Guess you’re a real cowgirl now, darlin’,” he said. “If the boot fits,” she replied. The boots needed some more work, but they still didn’t. He wasn’t really a cowboy and she wasn’t really a girl who thought she’d be buying country music albums the rest of her life.

The 3 a.m., phone call eight months after she started disregarding a few of her own Gs would wreck her. The music would be smashed and so would she after several girlie drinks. Eventually, she’d not dwell on the idea of the place and the words, and she’d stop wondering about the driver behind the wheel of every random Dodge she’d pass. The cowboy boots with the pink and red hearts stitched into the black leather would be also be left behind in a closet when she moved into another place and onto other things. Years later, ironically around the time Bon Jovi actually up and went a little country, she realized she didn’t miss the cowboy anymore, but she did wish she still had those damn cowboy boots. They didn’t really fit her, but still.