But their timing is propitious.

I’ve been thinking about gutting the Frenzy and rebuilding it as a Ruby app hosted on GitHub. That way, the site will be entirely static (read: unhackable), super fast, backed up, and hosted for free.

Moreover, I can begin to implement some of the nifty tricks I’ve been learning in prison at dojo4. Resize your browser window (or visit the site on your smartphone), and you’ll see what I mean.

Stay tuned!

After six years of working in the same mind-numbing hell-hole of a job, I’m moving on. That’s right, I’m taking a new position with an up-and-coming company out in the suburbs.

This place is like one of those companies you read about in the Wall Street Journal; they have showers for the employees (I just hope those security cameras are waterproof!), a basketball hoop in the parking lot, and a big bowl of Toostsie Rolls in the reception area (no one counts how many you take, evidently, but they do ask that you be considerate of others).

Sound like heaven? That’s exactly what I thought, but what’s even better is the fact that I’m crawling out of this virtual Shawshank completely unaided, under my own power. The grunts I’ve worked with all these years have no clue as to how they’ve made me suffer, what with their low-brow sense of humor and their gross insensitivity to my tweedy intellect. Think I’m going to miss hearing these cachucamundos review the latest YouTube fart videos every Monday morning in the break room?

Think again, mister!

It’s been a long, painful slog (Those interviews! The rental suits alone cost me a small fortune and they chafe!), but there’s light at the end of the tunnel now… at least I think it’s light.

But this missive isn’t about sour grapes, actually. What I’m worried about is how to handle myself in corporate. The company I’m going to work for is v-e-r-y elite—after all, they make the world’s finest elder-care products—and I’m a little daunted by the culture. After years of laboring away in Little Dogpatch, I’m afraid I might embarrass myself in my new position.

Can you give me a quick rundown on proper corporate etiquette?

Signed,

Hoping to Remain Anonymous for at Least Most of My Probationary Period

Dear Steve,

I’d be happy to help out. After all, we don’t want to see another one of those situations like you had in the New Hampshire Junior Rangers, do we? Talk about misreading your audience! Ever see so many attorneys in your life? Amazing.

Lets start with socks. You can actually buy them in stores now, so, by all means, change them at least once every fiscal year. The suits love stuff like personal hygiene (go figure), and you’ll earn big points by spending a little more time in this area.

Your friends. As much as you’d love giving them a tour of your groovy new office (Watch your head! That pipe is super-hot!), it would be a huge mistake letting them within sniffing distance of your new employer. Tell them your office is in a secured area and that they’ll need security passes to come visit (as if anyone would steal trade secrets from the solid-waste vaporization unit, ha!). I suspect, given their records, your friends won’t want anything to do with background checks, fingerprints, and breathalyzers. Lay it on heavy here, this is important.

While it’s nice getting to know people in a new job, and while making small talk around the water-cooler can help establish networks and good working relationships, we’d recommend avoiding all conversation in your case. Especially in your case. We still remember that time you used your best French to compliment a co-worker’s wardrobe. Insecte malodorant remplis poubelle might sound mighty nice on paper, but unless you want to be restricted to your cubicle for three weeks again, stay away from things like words and sentences.

Also, we’re willing to bet that, at your new job, playing “pocket whickets” in meetings will be seriously frowned upon. (We’re still not even sure how you kept score.)

We certainly don’t mean to scare you, though, Steve. We have every confidence you’ll do fine in a corporate setting… Actually, that’s a lie. Truth be told, we’re keeping your office open and we’ve put your clothes hamper back in the men’s room where it belongs.

Oh yeah… and please bring us some Tootsie Rolls when you come back. We love those little buggers, Lord help us.

Dave

I’m concerned about a guy I work with. For decades he’s shared an office and had lot’s of interaction with coworkers, faculty, and students. He’s well liked and a fun person to be around. However, recently he decided he’s moving into an office all by himself. The office has no windows and it has a large storage room in the back. My concern is I hope this new change in his workspace isn’t mirroring a withdrawal in his life. I hope he doesn’t set up his office in the back storage room and close the door, keeping his main office as an anteroom where people will find no one if they happen to drop by. I could envision the storage room having very low light and a caveman-like decor.

If he goes down that path, I suspect that over time people will forget he’s there and spider webs may form in the anteroom. And what if something happens to him? We may not realize it until weeks later. Perhaps a little odor will waft out into the hall and someone will call FacMan for an exterminator. He’ll come in with his Husqvarna WGE-5814 two-cycle fogger poised and ready; but he’ll stumble upon a skeleton at the computer with a bony hand on the mouse. The display will probably have a browser trained on http://www.flagstafffrenzy.org.

Well I’m getting ahead of myself. The move hasn’t even happened yet. But still I’m a little concerned about this guy. Do you have any advice for how I can reach out to him to keep him integrated into his community of madcap cyclists and satirical auteurs; and away from a spiraling path into seclusion?

Signed,

Fretting in Folsom

Dear Fretting in Folsom,

I know this is worrisome, but what you’re seeing here is called composting. It may be sad, initially, to witness something like this, but this is how nature works, and on a deeper level this is a beautiful thing to see firsthand. You’re lucky to be a part of it.

Now please hit the lights and be careful not to trip over that case of Ramen on the way out.

Dave

“Hello, is Mr. Martin there?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Martin, this is Jules Armand. I think you’ve been expecting my call?”

“So nice to hear from you, Jules. Welcome to the outside. Is everything going well for you so far?”

“So far, so good, but I’m still kind of sleepwalking, I guess.”

“Yes, I hear that’s quite common. Now tell me, where are you right now?”

“North Arkansas. Little town called Bingham.”

“Oh, that’s very good news. We’re ahead of schedule in that case.”

Patterson Supply was a mess. A pipe had burst during the night, and there was standing water in most of the aisles. The clerks had put as much of the stock as they could up on boards and cinder blocks, and getting through the store was a challenge. Hector Montoya was watching yet one more weekend go up in smoke. Home improvement—this time a fenced dog run—was Hector’s eternal curse, and on this particular Saturday morning as he waded through the hardware aisle, his mood loitered somewhere between bad and very bad.

He brightened when he saw Caslon Armand digging in a barrel of PVC scraps.

“Caslon! Hey, are you becoming a plumber?”

“Oh hey, Hector. No, man, I’m trying to get Ruby’s reefer system up to snuff. I found you can get stuff here for about half the price that they charge at a marine supply house. What are you building this weekend, a gazebo? A new house?”

Montoya’s quixotic domestic projects were the stuff of local legend, and he took the continuous ribbing in good humor (as he did almost everything).

“Nope, a dog run. Something easy this time. But somehow I know it’s going to end up costing a small fortune, and taking me the whole damn weekend.”

“Could be worse. Could be a boat.”

“I heard that. Say, I remember now that I wanted to talk to you. I’m sure you know about your brother by now, right?”

“Oh yeah. Did you have to remind me?”

“Well, I’ve been wanting to tell you that we got a bunch of e-mails about him, and a directive from the TBI that he’s not a welcome boy around here. If we see him, we grab him and call the feds.”

“The feds?”

“Yup. FBI. Jumping lines when you’re under parole from a federal pen is a very big deal, and I just wanted to let you know that my guys are all on board about this. But, from what we hear, he’s gone on over toward the East Coast and he seems to be minding his P’s and Q’s. I really don’t think we’re going to see him.”

“Well I’d like to say he’s not that stupid, but it is Jules, after all. Thanks for the heads-up, though. Kate’s going to be really happy to hear you guys are on top of it.”

“Hey man, we’re on this like you-know-what, right? By the way, is Adam still coming home to help you out over spring break?”

“Yeah, and he may be sorry. I’m going to have to work his butt off. It’s jack season, and we’re starting long-lines out off the shelf. And I’m down two guys.”

“Jeez. Can’t you hire someone? There’s always guys down at the agencies.”

“Know what I found out a long time ago, Hector? A guy you have to show everything to is worse than not having the guy at all. And they can get you killed. I’d rather go light and tight.”

“Light and tight? Did you just make that up?”

“An Armand original, sheriff.”

Adam was staying at Lynn’s place so much that his friends joked that he should be getting his mail there. It was true; he stopped by the dorm only about once or twice a week now, mostly to pick up the occasional letter from home or to see the guys and maybe shoot a few baskets. At Lynn’s he felt like he was at home. She had a flair for the domestic, and her apartment had the warmth and cozy closeness of a country home. What a wild difference from most of the places in which other Tulane students lived. No beer-can pyramids, no Nirvana posters, no bikes or gym equipment. And Lynn was the human mirror of her abode; her Kansas roots showed in virtually everything she said and did. She was level-headed, fiscally conservative, and practical. And to Adam’s way of thinking, she was hot. He never could understand how a girl who made seemingly no conscious attempt at sexiness could, in fact, be so sexy. She ruled him in every way, and he reveled in his victim-hood.

“So Adam, have you come up with a plan for summer yet?”

Lynn was sitting on the edge of the bed, futzing about with a broken zipper on her backpack.

“What do you mean, ‘plan’?”

“I mean, the last I heard, you were going to stay here and just grind away through the summer.”

“Yeah, that was the plan. I was wanting to get at least ten credits out of the way, but I’m not so sure now.”

“Man, you are in a hurry to graduate, aren’t you?”

“You bet. I want to get this stuff behind me ASAP.”

“And you’re extra anxious to start collecting that unemployment, aren’t you?”

Lynn loved teasing Adam about his major, which was History. She was a business student, and already had two internships lined up for the summer, one of which featured a potential fast track into the company’s administrative cortex.

“Yup, I can see it now; laying around the place all day, watching daytime TV, ruining my liver with cheap gin. That’s the life for me.”

“Yeah, but seriously… What about summer? Now it sounds like you might not stay at Tulane?”

“Well it all depends on Dad. Actually, on a guy named Kilo.”

“Kilo?”

“Yeah, I’ve told you about him. The old hippie? The one that got arrested with that dancer that time? He’s Dad’s first mate, and he’s been sick as hell. They still don’t know what’s wrong with him for sure. Anyway, I’m covering for him over spring break, and if he’s still sick this summer, I think I might need to help Dad then too. He’s going to be crazed.”

“So what’s a first mate?”

“He’s like the vice-president. More important, actually. He keeps the crew straightened out while the captain runs the boat and makes all the big decisions.”

“Could you do that?”

“Are you serious? Of course! I grew up on that damn boat, remember? Sure, I could do it.”

“Was your dad ever a first mate?”

“Yeah. Probably the youngest one ever in Texas, or anywhere else for that matter. He got his papers when he was twenty. He was crewing for the guy that owned Ruby before him. Luis Sandoval. He was kind of like a father to Dad, taught him everything, and when he got cancer, he just gave him the boat. Didn’t ask him for a penny. His own kids were pretty much worthless, and he loved Ruby. So in a way, Dad was the only choice.”

“So what about your dad’s dad? You never talk about him.”

“Dear old Grandpa? Gramps? He was a dick. Sorry, but we was, though. He was the town drunk. And the town brawler from what I hear. He drank until he got mean, then he’d beat his wife and his kids, and when he got bored with them, he’d go out on the town and find someone else to hammer on.”

“He beat your dad, right?”

“All day, every day.”

“How does your dad feel about that?”

“He’s never said a word. Neither has Mom. They act like the Armand family began with me.”

“I can tell, you spoiled little brat. So what did your grandfather do? For a living, I mean.”

“He was a jack-of-no-trades. He worked at all kinds of brain-dead jobs: roughneck, shrimper, highway construction, that kind of stuff. But he always got fired, always blamed the boss when things went bad. He was from Louisiana, and he moved to Texas in the 60’s. For some reason he thought he’d do better in Texas, like they had lower standards or something.”

“And he got killed? Behind a bar?”

“Yeah. Big surprise there. He had about a million enemies, and one of them whacked him with a butcher knife in the alley behind the Music Box Bar. End of old Gramps, and there wasn’t a tear in the house.”

“And what about your uncle. It’s Jules, right?”

“Yeah, Jules. You don’t even want to know.”

What the hell kind of idiot would file all of the E’s behind the G’s? Hector was trying to organize all of the inactive contact forms, sorting through the stack of gray file boxes in the storage room behind the holding cells. On the table next to him was a half-eaten danish and the rank bottom-third of a large coffee. He picked up the phone, hit “55#”, and was already in full roar when Art Drummond picked up on the other end.

“Drummond! Who did the filing last week?”

“Filing?”

“Yeah filing! I’m trying to get these contact forms separated out for the audit, and some moron has the whole goddamned works out of order. And this is just the first box!”

“Oh. The contact forms. That would be me, sir.”

“Well get back here and help me get this figured the hell out. I’m so confused now I don’t know which end is up.”

“Be right there sir!”

Hector sat the phone back in its cradle, paused a second, then smiled. He had to admit to himself that he must seem like one mean SOB to his guys at least half the time. Days like this really drew out the ogre in him, though. It was the first truly hot day of the season in Boward, the temperature already pointing north of ninety-seven, the humidity in close pursuit, and the normal morning sea breeze was no more than a whisper. The puppy had dug its way out of Montoya’s newly-fenced dog run three times during the week, one of the drunks in the big cell had gotten so sick last night that the guys had needed to bring a garden hose in through the window to hose things down, and the freaking Dow was down another thirty points. And now, with a state audit scheduled for the following week, it appeared the filing system was in serious need of an overhaul.

“Sir…”

“Drummond, you do know your alphabet, don’t you?”

“Yes sir! Sure. But I just must have gotten distracted or something. I’m really sorry if I’ve screwed things up. I can get it sorted out in no time, I’m sure.

“Well you know, we have to have all of this stuff dead-nuts for the auditors next week. Those guys flag everything, even filing systems, believe it or not.”

”I’m sure they realize that a good filing system is important for effective law enforcement to work right, sir.”

“I doubt it. I don’t think they know shit about law enforcement, but they’re the most tight-assed, self-righteous, arrogant little jerks you’d ever want to meet, and when they bust you on admin points, the governor’s office is all over you for a month. That’s why we need to get these forms straightened out.”

“Sure, Hector. I’ll start with…”

Hector’s cell phone rang at almost precisely the same moment the red dispatch light blinked in the hallway.

“Montoya.”

It was Erica Needham’s voice at the other end.

“Hector, its Erica. We’ve got a really nasty domestic down here on Price. Guy has a knife, they’ve been fighting since midnight. Neighbors say they’ve been breaking things and throwing stuff around the whole time. We can’t get in because the guy’s threatening to poke his old lady. Derek just called it in.”

“Where on Price?”

“1325 North.”

“Oh, them. I guess the marital bliss just got to be too much for them again. When were we down there last?”

“January, I think, Hector. This is the first time we’ve seen the knife trick, though.”

“Yeah, kind of scary.” Aside, Hector signaled Drummond to pull a car up around front and to keep the motor running.

“Well, just sit tight until I get there, Erica. This will probably go nowhere, but let’s not push these two right now. Maybe they’ll start sobering up.”

“Will do.”

On his way out the door, Hector ducked into his office, grabbed his service revolver from the coat rack, and his kevlar vest from the basket of gear in his locker.

When Hector and Drummond pulled up in front of the battered white stucco house at 1325 Price, the scene was surprisingly tranquil. Derek Larson was filling out paperwork on the fender of the department’s new Blazer. Erica Needham was squatting on the front porch next to the door, and Larry Salazar was sitting on a stump on the north side of the house. They were all in their winter blues, and sweating mightily under the intense sun. It had to be over a hundred now, and the inevitable throng of curious neighbors had retreated into the sparse regions of shade on the adjoining lots. Hector trotted over to Larson to get an update.

“I don’t know sir, maybe the heat killed them. We haven’t heard anything for twenty minutes or so.”

“The heat might just kill us. I can’t figure out why they haven’t sent our summer uniforms back yet. Hell of a day to not have them.”

“It looks like these are our old friends, Bob and Linda Sewell. Both drunk, we’re sure. They were in the living room, right there behind that window. The ratbag has a very large blade of some sort, the woman has indicated that he’s willing to use it on her. Very distraught. They may be in the bedroom now, but we haven’t made a visual for awhile. Officer Salazar has a cross-fix on both exits, Officer Needham has ceased verbal contact until hearing what you want to do next. It would seem it’s critical that we move in as a unit.”

Critical? Hector rolled that over in his head for a second. Critical. Larson was the only cop he’d ever heard use that word.

“Okay, well you stay here with the car. If you need to call Tri-County, you’ll be good-to-go. Art, you keep the damn neighbors away. I’ll go see what I can see.”

Hector walked across the lawn, made a hand signal to Needham who knelt sweltering on the porch, then around the side of the house and past Salazar, who looked as if he were ready to faint.

“You okay Larry?”

“Damn hot, boss. But I’m okay.”

“You heard anything lately?”

“All quiet on the western front. I think they’re still in the bedroom.”

“Well, I’m going in through the back. Just keep your eyes open, and signal me if you see anything.”

“‘Kay.”

Hector crouched low, and scurried around through the ironweed and parched creosote to the back of the house. Andy Richter, leaning against one of the older blue patrol cars in the alley, gave a wave. The back door was open, and cool air from the swamp cooler streamed through.

Critical. Larson just cracked him up. It’s critical that I don’t trip going in the back door. It’s critical that I don’t let this low-life jerk stab his wife. Then she’d be in critical condition. In spite of himself, he started to giggle, and the harder he tried to stop, the worse it got. As he stepped through the doorway, he was beside himself with stopped-up laughter and had to literally bite his lower lip to keep it in. He thought: it’s critical that I keep my shit together when I talk to this guy.

“Bob Sewell? It’s Hector Montoya. I’m the Boward County sheriff. I think you remember me. I want to come in and talk.”

Silence.

“Just stay calm, Bob. I just want to talk. If you simmer down, we can get things patched up and we can all relax. It’s too damn hot to be going through this, you know? I’m dying and I just want to get back to the AC in my office.”

Silence.

Hector stepped into the house. The first room inside the door was the laundry room. A basket of clothes was overturned, and socks, underwear, and assorted shirts were strewn around the room. The place was indescribably filthy. The paint on the walls was greasy with dirt, and the molding around the doorways splintered and black with grime. In the kitchen dirty dishes were stacked ten deep on the counters, flattened Coors and Bud cans littered the flaking linoleum floor, and flies swarmed with frenzied abandon. God, he hated flies.

“Bob, it’s Sheriff Montoya. I’m in your kitchen now. I’d love it if you’d just walk out of here with me. We could all just call it a day. Hell, I could use a little nap, couldn’t you?”

“He’s going to kill me!”

Linda Sewell’s voice was frantic, hoarse, and genuine.

“Shut your goddamned mouth, Linda! I warned you to just shut your goddamned mouth!”

Bob Sewell’s voice, on the other hand, sounded like a recording. Maybe, after seven hours of screaming and fighting, his commitment was starting to fade.

“Bob, come on out here where I can see you. Do you still have that big old knife?”

“He’s got a butcher knife stuck on my neck!”

“It’s a machete, idiot!”

“Jeez, Bob. You don’t want to be doing that. Come on, man. It’s just the heat and the booze, I know that. Put that blade down and come on out here. Let’s just talk.”

There was a stirring from down the hall, and after a moment Bob Sewell came from out of the bedroom. He was wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and cutoffs. Hector remembered him now, from last January. A huge, moon-faced man with dirty blonde hair, balding on top and tied back in a ponytail, Sewell presented an odd contradiction of massive physical power and bewildered juvenile innocence. He held a rusty 17 inch machete in his right hand. He was obviously exhausted and sweat soaked his clothes.

“God, I am just so tired,” he said as he let the machete fall to the floor.

Around and past him, Hector yelled. “Linda, are you okay?”

Sobbing from the bedroom: “Yes. Yeah, I—I’m okay, I guess. I’m okay.”

Keeping one eye on Bob Sewell, who had now slumped to the floor, Hector unsnapped the two-way from his belt and made the terse announcement the guys melting out in the sun were dying to hear:

“This is Montoya. We’re okay now. We’ve got two very tired and dehydrated people in here. I’ll bring the man out first. Larry, can you come on in and check on Mrs. Sewell?”

He read Sewell his Miranda’s, cuffed him, got him to his feet, and pointed him toward the front door. As they were crossing the garbage filled living room, Larry Salazar came in through the back, stepping over pizza boxes, laundry, and trash.

“She’s in the bedroom, Larry. I’ll get Mr. Sewell here out to a cruiser. We better get Tri-Country down here to take a look at her.”

“Okay.”

Out front the neighbors were tightening the circle around the lot, braving the sun and not wanting for a minute to miss Bob Sewell’s thrice-annual perp-walk.

“God, Derek, get these people to back off a bit, would you?”

Crowd-control was Barney Fife-nirvana for Derek Larson, and as he began working the perimeter like an exuberant sheepdog, Hector guided Bob Sewell into the back seat of Larson’s Blazer. Suddenly, from within the house, there came a long horrible howl, overlapped after a moment by an even longer scream.

“Larson! Watch this guy!”

Montoya sprinted back into the house, skidded around the corner into the hallway, and almost ran over Linda Sewell as he entered the bedroom. She was standing over Larry Salazar, who was crumpled in a pool of blood on the shag carpet. In her right hand was the jagged neck of a gallon wine jug, the rest of which formed a shattered wreath about the raw, bleeding laceration that stretched most of the way around Salazar’s skull.

“Richter! Needham! Officer down! Officer down!”

Hector shoved Linda Sewell to the floor, buried a knee in her back, and pulled her arms into a sort of full-nelson. Richter and Needham flew into the room and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of Larry Salazar sprawled on the floor.

“Jesus! Jesus Christ! God, what happened?”

“How the hell would I know, Richter? Get this woman out of here! Where’s Tri County?”

“I just heard them pull up. Carolyn must have told them to run lights and siren.”

“Smart girl. Run out front and direct them back here, would you?”

“Alright.”

Richter handcuffed Linda Sewell, pushed her to her feet and out the door. For the first time, Hector noticed that her clothes were torn and that she was missing part of her right ear.

Hector leaned down close to Salazar and said, “Larry, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay. The guys are here with the ambulance. They’re going to take good care of you. Can you hear me Larry?”

Silence.

Back at headquarters things were funereal. Whenever a deputy was busted up in the line of duty, the entire staff at the station was hugely affected, and an emotional funk sat on the place like a black fog. Hector stuck his head in the door of the dispatch office and thanked Carolyn for calling the ambulance.

“That was a good call having them run L&S, Carolyn. Thanks. Things fell apart so fast down there I couldn’t believe it.”

“Somehow I knew something was going to crash. I guess I’ve been dispatching so long I have a sixth sense. How’s Larry?”

“Erica’s down there with him right now. She’s going to call as soon as the docs have any news. It didn’t look good, I’ll tell you.”

In his office, Hector sat back in his chair for a long time, rubbing his eyes, thinking back on the scene on Price. God, what a mess. He wondered what the hell Linda Sewell could have been thinking when she nailed poor Larry. And what had Larry felt, going into the room assuming he was there to help this poor defenseless, battered wife, only to be bashed over the head with a gallon Rossi wine jug? Jesus, things just don’t make sense sometimes. After several long moments, his pulse finally back in the comfort zone, Hector opened his eyes and punched up the phone to check his messages. He had two, the first from Kim:

“Hi Honey, hope your day is going okay. Wanted to let you know that your little stinker got out of the dog run again somehow, and I found him over at the Foley’s, going through their trash. Sorry to tell you. Oh, yeah, and Enrico called to wish you a happy Father’s Day. You should call him when you get a chance. He sounded a little down. Gotta go. Love you!”

And the second from Tom Lyle of the Texas Bureau of Investigation:

“Hector, it’s Tom Lyle. Hope things are going okay down there for you. I thought you’d like to know that Jules Armand has gone off-screen somewhere where he isn’t supposed to be. A State cop pulled him up in Arkansas today. Speeding. He got loose somehow. What can I say: dumb cop… it’s Arkansas, you know? Anyhow, he made a run and they lost him. Rental car, southbound near Jennings somewhere, 10:30 a.m.. Blue 2002 Camrey, Illinois BVT 233R. Who knows what the hell he’s thinking. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything more. Stay cool down there.”

Great.

Man, this was going to be one rough afternoon. Ten minutes into Burkeland’s lecture and Adam Armand was already cross-eyed with fatigue. He didn’t see how he could possibly get through the rest of this ninety-minute class, not to mention the Art History lecture immediately afterwards. He could pull off one or two short nights in a row, but apparently four was way too many. Burkeland’s voice threaded its way in and out of the humming in his ears and one eye finally closed. Maybe he could sleep with just one eye at a time, his eyes taking turns, find some way to prop his head up on his notebook, and slip into a delicious half-sleep. Maybe just doze a minute. Or two?

“…will be on the exam next Friday, along with the materials from yesterday’s lecture, which unfortunately the editors of our text found too arcane to include in their scrawny chapter on Germany’s political inversion.”

Adam bolted straight upright, his nervous system humming. Shit. Here he was dozing through some of the most important stuff he’d need to know for Burkeland’s mid-term. What had he missed? He looked at his notebook and saw that his orderly procession of notes had devolved into an EKG-looking mess somewhere around April 1934. He couldn’t read a thing he’d written in the last ten minutes. Great; some student he’d become.

He pictured his parents: his father working the lines on the ancient trawler, the rusty cogs making that godawful racket as the slime and ooze from the Gulf ran around his boots and out through the scuppers. His mother hunched over a hot little pool of florescent light—one of hundreds in the plant—soldering tiny bits of electronics onto the circuit boards Western Digital manufactured for their do-nothing junk. Adam was the first Armand ever to attend college, and his parents had worked slavishly to make it happen. His grades in high school had been good, but not good enough to draw much in the way of scholarships or grants. So now, here he sat, the pride of the clan, sleeping through a core-level class while Mom and Dad ground themselves down in their back-breaking jobs. Adam scribbled away at double speed, trying to catch up as best he could, tilting his head to catch every last word droning from Burkeland’s mouth. When the class finally and mercifully ended, Adam half jogged to the coffee cart in front of Elbert Hall. A tall Americano was just what he’d need before plunging into the next ninety-minute lecture.

“Adam! Hey!”

Adam’s friend and roommate from last semester, Ben Singh, was hailing him from across the plaza.

“Adam! Wait up!” Ben, overweight, short, and chronically breathless, made his way through the student throng, bisecting the red sandstone plaza.

“Hey Adam. Glad I caught you. The main office left a note on your door. You’re supposed to call home right away. Some kind of family emergency or something. If you ever spent the night in your room, maybe you’d know what the hell is going on, huh?”

“Emergency? Did they say what it was ?”

“No, man. The note just said that you’re supposed to call home pronto.”

“Oh, crap. What the hell could that be about?”

“I don’t know, man. But you better find a phone and make the call.”

“Yeah, alright. Thanks, Benji. Guess I better boogie if I’m gonna’ make that call and not be late for class. See ya’.”

“Hey, Dad?”

“Adam!”

“Where the hell are you? It sounds like something’s about ready to blow up or something.”

“Oh that? I’m down at Huey’s. They’re trying to blast all the crap out of that starboard junction box.”

“I thought you quit having trouble that sucker after we had it rebuilt.”

“Oh, you know… stuff doesn’t last long out in the Gulf. That’s just part of the fisherman’s life, right?”

“Yeah… So I had a message to call. There’s an emergency?”

“Well, not an emergency emergency, but some bad news, and we thought you should know. Jules is out. Somehow he got good behavior or whatever, and he’s out.”

“Oh crap… So where is he?”

“Don’t know. Janine told us, and she doesn’t know either. But he’s out, and your Mom’s freaking out. I’m not real thrilled myself. This is like ten years before he was supposed to walk, and we can’t figure what the hell happened. I mean you really can’t see Jules getting out on good behavior, right?”

“No kidding. There must be more that we don’t know about, but it sounds really fishy to me. God, Mom must be going nuts.”

“Yeah, plus she says there’s more layoffs coming at the plant.”

“Oh great . Listen Dad, I hate to rush, but I’ve got to get to class. I have about two minutes to get across campus.”

“Sure, Adam. Better take off. But wait… We want you to get a cell phone. Put it on the DallasBank card. We need to get hooked up easier. It’s a bitch getting in touch with you sometimes.”

“Serious? A cell?”

“Yeah, one like mine. You know, the basic cheapie deal. But do it soon, promise?”

“Sure.”

“Now, scoot. And we love you.”

Friday night found Kate in a somewhat better mood. The layoff rumblings at Western Digital were pointing decidedly toward shipping, and the spirits in Assembly Wing A had steadily climbed throughout the afternoon. Some of the Hispanic assemblers even began singing as they worked, and as much as the General Manager hated it, the whole floor was swinging by 4 o’clock. That’s what Kate loved about her work group: when they got the notion they could turn on an emotional dime like a school of fish. More than once in the five years she’d been working there, she’d seen everyone in the wing meld into one, generally in response to something stupid management had done to offend their collective sense of justice. And every time the sheer force of their numbers and will had had an undeniable impact. Call it a non-union union or whatever, but it worked, and on this particular Friday, the old Mexican songs of the fathers were the sweetest sounds Kate could possibly have imagined.

At home, Janine’s message on the machine was almost as rosy. Jules was out—that part wasn’t, unfortunately, simply a bad dream—but he was being watched by authorities in at least three states. Janine had finally gotten through to a real person in the Illinois criminal justice system, and the story was that Jules had received a compound cut on his sentence, the result of several elements—Jules’ good behavior, a statewide prisons-funding crisis, and a new review board heavily dominated by over-schooled idealists—all at precisely the time Jules was scheduled for his first appeal. He’d been given $500, a phone card, a suit, and directions to stay away from Texas. He was last seen driving east into Ohio. According to Janine, Jules’ history of violent behavior and of threatening death and mayhem in Texas was taken very seriously by the review board and all terms of early release rested on his following the board’s rules. Maybe, just maybe, this time he’d learned his lesson, and wasn’t dead fixed on hurling himself bloodily once more against authority.

Kate put an open Miller’s on the coffee table, and thought back to her first impressions of the Armand family. God, if she’d only known then… When she first met Caslon, Jules was doing six months over in the DeLane County jail. He’d tried to rob a convenience store, and everything had gone wrong. Through a weird twist of fate, he hit the place at the same time two other guys from Galveston were tying the same thing. Imagine that: two concurrent heists on the same place. The Galveston thugs pulled their guns first, the store’s customers all hit the deck, and Jules tripped over a screaming, pregnant shopper in his rush to nail the register. As he scrambled to his feet, slipping this way and that in a slick of spilled milk, Jule’s gun flipped out of his jacket and across the floor. One of the Galveston robbers caught him in the back of the head with a synthetic fireplace log just as he’d gotten himself upright and in motion. Thirty-eight stitches, six months in jail, and another sad skit in the unhappy and pointless life of Jules Armand was played out. Kate had been thoroughly repulsed by everything she’d heard about Jules, and it was almost impossible to believe that Jules and Caslon were brothers. Just as Jules was violent, stubborn, vindictive and lazy, Caslon was kind, funny and industrious. Jules was the prodigally dumb and unlucky crook, Caslon the productive and reliable fisherman who thrived on hard work. Kate remembered how their early dates would somehow always end up down at the basin, and how proud Caslon had been, showing her virtually everything there was to know about Ruby, the 48 foot trawler of which he was the first mate.

Cas was self-made, and the troubled waters of the Armand family flowed well below and behind him. The old man, abusive and universally reviled, had died when Cas was seventeen, the victim of a late-night assault and robbery behind the Music Box bar in downtown Boward. Mrs. Armand died of cancer a year later, leaving Cas, Janine, and Jules to beat the bushes of southern coastal Texas for whatever meager crumbs they could find. Janine, five years Caslon’s senior, married a year after the mother’s death, and she and her new, smack-addicted husband flew northward with breathtaking speed. Jules had taken to nocturnally probing Boward’s soft spots, and enthusiastically embarked upon his life’s work of petty theft and sociopathic behavior. Cas, amazingly, mellowed and matured through that horrible time, and his good humor and genial personality served him well. People liked him from the ground up. His after-school job down in the basin - drying and mending nets, running errands, hauling supply carts—had earned him a reputation as an ambitious kid who didn’t shy at manual labor. Right after his mother’s death he hired on with Captain Luis Sandoval, and the forays into the Gulf aboard Sandoval’s Ruby had touched him indelibly and to the core. He loved the sea. For Caslon, every trip past the breakwater was an exodus, and the deep azure waters of the Gulf, with their teeming life and infinite moods, soothed his soul and allowed him to leave the awful truths of his childhood bobbing impotently in his wake. Ruby was a lucky boat. Somehow she managed to consistently sniff out the Gulf’s largest and most productive pods of fish, and her return runs to Boward’s docks were generally high-spirited. Captain Sandoval was a decorated Korean War vet, a hard drinker, an even harder worker, and was loved dearly by Ruby’s crew. The seven men who worked aboard Ruby struck Caslon as nothing less than brothers, and they watched over one another in a way that, until then, had been thoroughly unknown to him. Sandoval’s authority was absolute once the little ship left the basin, but so too was his sense of justice and humanity. The crew was as obedient as any that might be found in the Navy, but Sandoval’s light touch on all matters non-marine gave Ruby the feel of a floating biker bar.

On his earliest trips out, most of which lasted a week and change, Caslon tried to stay well out of the way of ship’s business, pointedly keeping his attention screwed to his work—mostly cutting bait, cleaning the galley, and stacking fish in the freezer units. But after a few months his seaworthiness and ambition intersected in a way that made Sandoval take notice. He was given new duties, and was increasingly allowed into the wheelhouse. He learned at a pace that surprised even him. At the end of a year and a half, through various machinations, not the least of which involved the escalating Vietnam war and the unfortunate draft status of half of Ruby’s crew, Caslon was made first mate. That’s when he met Kate Conners.

When Kate was seventeen she was clerking at the Bread Box. It was a great part-time job, mostly because it was only a block from the house, and the assistant manager had an obvious, if embarrassing crush on her. She got the shifts she wanted, easy duties in the stockroom, and tons of freebies. Her parents worried that the job might work at odds with her grades, but, in fact, the inverse proved to be true. Quite possibly it was the necessity of managing multiple schedules; Kate juggled the job and her school life efficiently and successfully.

One Saturday morning Caslon stopped by the Bread Box on his way down to the basin, hoping to score the best of the marked-down doughnuts before the crowds hit. Kate was shelving bread in the bakery when he came round the corner, already three hours into his day, and deeply preoccupied with all of the last minute details attendant to getting Ruby out before the currents changed. You couldn’t have exactly called it love at first sight, but you might fairly have guessed that the lifelong bond between that girl in the Bread Box apron and the boyish fisherman was as inevitable as the turning tide. The crew of the Ruby soon became accustomed to a seemingly limitless supply of Bread Box doughnuts and pastries to fuel their offshore voyages, and Kate and Caslon wed two days after Kate’s eighteenth birthday. They lived in the home of Kate’s parents their first year together. The Armand house was Jules’ territory, and the newlyweds wanted no chance of crossing his path.

Life in the Conners house was, for Caslon, like being on some other planet. There was no drunken, violent ranting, no beatings, no hostile sulking for days on end. The Conners were a real family, and Caslon felt complete in their presence. In fact, it occurred to him that he had never actually been happy before, that life with his own family had been nothing more than a type of bruised hibernation from which he might now finally emerge, breathing deeply the fresh coastal air for the first time in his life.

Kate’s father, Al Conners, had at one time been the mayor of Boward, and his wife Mary was famously active in the community, seemingly present at every PTO or community service function. Al’s insurance agency, though no financial wonder, was workhorse enough to support his family in a way that easily put them in Boward’s thin upper crust. But Al was no tight-fisted suit; he regularly opened his wallet and heart to Boward’s less fortunate, often making preposterously risky loans to the down-and-outs from the basin who found themselves swimming upstream against torrents of debt. This odd mix of charity, ambition, and success affected Caslon deeply, and it began to re-shape his very form.

Kate’s memories of those early days were a heady mix of bliss and frustration. She loved Caslon deeply, and couldn’t get over the fact that she was so lucky to have found him. But, understandably, she was dying to get out of the Conners house and begin a life of her own. She and Caslon saved every dollar they made, and they soon became intimately familiar with Boward’s anorexic real estate listings. Two or three times every month they would find a place that enthused them, inducing the nesting instinct, and spawning great dreams of decorating, gardening, and remodeling. But a closer look inevitably uncovered deeper problems—financing hurdles, inspector’s reports, contractor’s liens—that quickly unhinged their childlike reveries. Al Conner advised them to keep saving and to keep their heads on straight; better things always came to those with patience. And indeed, he was right, because shortly after their first anniversary Kate and Caslon found the home out on County Road 114. It was, for them, a perch on heaven’s porch. From the bluff upon which the house sat, the view across the Laguna Miera was unspoiled, raw, and ever-changing. Soft hills of mixed coastal grasses rolled away from just below the front yard on down to the tidal flats and deep blue channels of the Laguna, where the only sign of human existence was the occasional slow-trolling flats fisherman. Off beyond the dunes on the Laguna’s far side, the heavier mass of the Gulf could be seen, shimmering in the ever-present sunlight.

Financing for the home had been tight, and Caslon had taken second and third jobs between Ruby’s voyages, generally doing odd work in the basin. Kate moved up to the night manager position at the Bread Box, and it became common for her to put in sixty hour weeks, racking up several thousand dollars in overtime in one short blur of a summer. Al had told them he would match whatever war chest they could raise in trying to meet the minimum down payment on the house. Things fell together nicely, and the two exhausted teens signed for their first and only home shortly after Labor Day, 1981.

Kate took a swig of Millers, leaned back into the deep pile of pillows on the couch and smiled at the thought of teenagers playing house.

Caslon came out of the bathroom, his hair matted from the shower, and smelling of Prell.

“Cas, I’m not so sure about bowling tonight. I’m worn out, and the thought of driving up to Ft. Griff just makes me more tired. Would you be really upset if we didn’t go?”

“You read my mind. It’s been a hell of a week, huh? I don’t think Teddy will mind if we don’t show. He’s missed a bunch of nights himself. Besides, that will give him more lane time anyhow. Although I bet they get creamed without us!”

“Bet they do, too. God, what a relief. I am so tired.”

“Yeah, me too. And I do feel like resting up. Next week’s going to be a bitch.”

“Getting Ruby ready for the long-lines?”

“Yeah, and short at least two crew. I don’t think Kilo will be over his tests yet, and Billy’s still taking care of his Mom.”

“But Adam is coming home to help still, right? Over his spring break?”

“That’s the story. Hope so; I’m really going to need him.”

“Poor kid. Some spring break… Hey, what did he say when you talked to him about Jules?”

“You know Adam. Not much of a response there. Just that he was more worried about us than him.”

“Good kid… Hey Cas?”

“Yeah?”

“Why does Jules hate you so much?”

“Like I told you; he’s jealous that stuff goes so well for me and that everything he does seems to go down in flames. He’s always blamed me for his crappy life. It’s just jealousy, that’s all.”

“Well I’m glad he’s headed east, and I’m even more glad there’s a court order keeping him the hell away from Texas.

“Amen, little sister. Another beer?”

Last summer I lent a favorite nephew of mine my old leather-bound copy of Photoshop. I figured what-the-hell, I don’t use it much anymore and he’s such a bright kid and all, so one afternoon I just gave it to him. Mind you, I warned him that Photoshop is a serious program and that not just any Tom, Dick, or Harry can use it.

He swore he’d be careful, and that he’d keep it locked up when his buddies came over to play board games and drink Cokes and such. Like I said, he’s a good kid and I trusted him.

Well - and you can almost see where this is leading - the next thing I know, he’s tearing up and down the Internet raising hell like some sort of drunken Shriner in a turbo-charged go-cart. He’s knocking out whale’s tails and cutting donuts right in from of the whole damned world and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s outfitting his so-called “blog” (real blogs have readers, am I right?) with poorly-Photoshopped urinal pucks. You read me right, I said urinal pucks.

Seemingly overnight, he’d become a menace both to himself and to society… and all using my copy of Photoshop 3.0! All of a sudden, I was feeling a lot like the guy who told Darryl Hannah she could act.

Dave, I know this kid; he’ll never give my software back willingly. It’s gone to his head and I don’t think he even comprehends what he’s become. But I feel responsible somehow for the carnage he’s causing out there, and I’m hoping you might help me think of a way to bring this madness to an end.

Signed,

Wishing I’d Just Given Him a Shotgun Instead in Gunbarrel

Dear Wishing I’d Just Given Him a Shotgun Instead in Gunbarrel,

Believe it or not, this may actually be a job for the Division of Wildlife. They deal with this stuff all the time, though usually with easier to handle problems like black bears who’ve developed a taste for ginger snaps.

They’ll probably corner him then hit him with a tranquilizer dart. I know this sounds drastic, but this way no one gets hurt. They’ll undoubtedly confiscate the copy of Photoshop and destroy it. Sorry, but it’s a liability thing.

As to your nephew, I suspect he’ll be relocated to someplace where he can’t do much damage, even if he ever does get his hands on anything more dangerous than TextEdit.

I hope he likes Florida.

Now go make that call before he strikes again.

Dave

The Armand house sat at the end of a long gravel driveway on the bluffs overlooking the Laguna Miera. A few wizened Russian olives, once hopeful in their youth, but now defeated and ugly in age, stood at the head of the drive, and beyond them the acre-and-a-half Armand place was mostly a study in gray. The ground, overgrazed decades ago by the prior owner’s goats, had never recovered and supported only a few small islands of desperate sawgrass. Kate Armand, bless her heart, had planted lilacs and rose-of-sharon back in the 80’s, but the sum evidence of their existence was now nothing more than a rectangle of blunt stumps surrounding the house. Old timers said that the current drought in southern Texas was the worst and the longest ever, and the Armands weren’t alone in their surrender to the elements; all up and down the Gulf coast, formerly lush and verdant landscapes had given way to barren reality, and attempts at saving lawns and flowers had been almost universally abandoned.

Caslon parked behind Kate’s Honda and walked slowly up the porch steps, the weird feeling pushing hard on him like some alien form of gravity. Something was indeed wrong. He knew it as soon as the screen door slammed closed behind him and he saw Kate at the kitchen table, her back to him, her shoulders heaving.

“Kate. What’s up?,” he said as he crossed the little living room.

“It’s your brother. They’ve released him. He’s out.”

Kate’s sobbing was intense, breathless, and it was hard to understand her, but the words “brother’ and “out” were all he needed.

“Jesus. He’s out? He’s out? How in the hell did that happen? He’s supposed to do another ten at least. What the hell…”

“Janine said he got good behavior and that they needed more space in the prison and that there was some kind of political thing going on or something. Oh, my God Cas, what are we going to do?”

Caslon walked to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed his hands. A chicken sat defrosting in a plastic bowl. Spices, assorted vegetables, a cutting board, and an open cookbook were scattered across the counter, and Caslon conjured a quick snapshot in which Kate, chopping and peeling the ingredients for tonight’s dinner, had been interrupted by Janine’s phone call - and everything had come to a halt.

“So does anyone know where he is?”

“No… Janine said they think he was headed for the East Coast, but no one’s sure. Nobody seems to know anything, except that the son of a bitch is out. Oh God, Cas, I’m scared!”

“Look, all that stuff happened a long time ago. It could be that he’s mellowed out. Or maybe he has other things to think about now. I mean Jesus, that was twenty years ago. Plus, they wouldn’t let him out if he hadn’t changed. Right?”

But in spite of his attempt at pulling Kate free of her full-on panic, Caslon felt himself sinking fast. His reaction was physical as well as mental; the feeling in his stomach was that of a raw, gnawing dread, and his legs had gone numb. As much as he wanted to pull Kate from her chair, embrace her and make her know all was well, he couldn’t. He slumped into the chair next to hers and buried his face in his hands. He closed his eyes and saw his brother, that last time in court. Jules was three years younger, big, and wound tight. His hair was worn in a perpetual snarl, and scars from bar fights and dumb accidents webbed his face. The trial had gone quickly enough. There wasn’t much to deliberate, given Jules’ criminal record, the willingness and abundance of the witnesses, and the appalling images presented by the prosecution. It had taken the jury a sum total of thirty-five minutes to come back with a guilty verdict, and the judge had had the sentence—the maximum allowable—bundled up and ready to go. As Jules had been wrestled out of the courtroom by two court’s deputies, he’d screamed he’d have his day, and for Jules that could only mean one thing.

After a long period of quiet, Caslon reached out and took Kate’s hand. She sat back, looked at him and attempted a smile. There was a small pool of tears on the linoleum table, and as she absently wiped it away with the back of her hand, she said “Better get yourself a beer; there’s more.”

“What do you mean, ‘more?’”

“They had a big meeting at work today, and there’s for-sure going to be more layoffs.”

“You’re kidding. I didn’t think they had anyone left.”

“Just me, I guess.”

“So, is it you?”

“Actually no one knows right now. But they’re saying it’s going to be big this time. All of the guys down in receiving are freaking out. I think I should be safe, but so did Amy Booth. She thought she was in-like-Flint, then, boom. Remember?”

“Yeah. Jesus, that’s just what we need right now, huh? How soon do you find out?”

“They say Monday, but who knows.”

As Caslon ran the numbers through his head, trying to figure just how devastated their finances would be without Kate’s job, a new thought arrived, giving him a start.

“We need to call Adam,” he said. “He needs to know about Jules.”

“I tried. The phones are still out in his dorm.”

“Oh great. Then I guess we better call the main office or whatever at the school. He needs to know his uncle is out. And he needs to be careful.”

“Not as careful as you do.”

“I know.”

Jules Armond was starving. He’d eaten earlier in the day at a little deli in New Berrington, but that was hours ago, and now it felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. It was raining like hell, and from what he could see of southern Indiana, the prospects of stopping anywhere soon were nil. Farms. Why were there so damn many farms? He’d like a little sleep as well; he’d been driving non-stop since 4pm yesterday. Several times in the past hundred miles, he’d caught himself drifting across the interstate, feeling alternately alarmed and numb, then fighting the inevitable slip back into drowsiness. The radio in the rental was preset to a bunch of talk stations out of Chicago. He’d spun back and forth through them, looking for something to keep him awake, and at first he’d been successful. But now, down here in Indiana’s rural dead-zone, all he could find was country. He’d heard enough of that crap in Marion. Three in the morning in C Block, and half the dumbass crackers on the wing would still have their radios cranked, Randy Travis or Shanya Twain echoing up and down halls. He used to wonder, as he lay in his bunk late at night, if any of those guys on the floor ever considered just how far beyond Shanya Twain’s orbit they truly were. Popular culture—music, magazines, TV—all depressed him terribly, making him feel ever more the outsider, ever more irrelevant. Jules had a unique zero-tolerance policy, deeply etched into his psyche: he refused to be anyone’s mark. You could take him damn near any way you wanted, but you had better take him serious. And the beautiful people of the world, the jocks and the attorneys, the singers and the actors, the head-girls, he knew from experience, never took guys like him seriously. The stooges in Marion didn’t seem to get that. Most of the guys in the joint harbored cartoonish, delusional images of themselves; they were big-shots, strutting through the mess line or the metal shop as if they were the real deal. But Jules knew them for what they were: weightless, tattooed losers, preening away the years in a sick parody of real life. Marion sucked.

Just outside Sevlin, Indiana, on the right side of the on-ramp, an enormous sign emerged from the mist, advertising a family-style steakhouse. Jules wheeled off the highway and into the parking lot. The first thing he noticed on entering the restaurant was the acrid smell of frying food. This was one of those naugahyde places where every table was set in a booth and seemingly every surface was soft and pleated. For the seventh or eighth time in the past twenty-four hours, Jules had the odd sensation that he was watching himself from his bunk back on the block. It was weird; it was as if, after years of dreaming it, he had finally escaped, and now inmate GR2225-Y was seeing the whole thing go down in grainy black and white. The Please-Wait-to-be-Seated sign, partially hidden behind a potted palm, was hand lettered in metal-flake gold. A short, dumpy girl with shockingly pale skin appeared from behind the palm, grabbed a tattered menu, and led him to a booth near the back. The fare almost made him long for Marion. After a few frustrating moments of perusing the dinner choices, he settled on the chicken-fried steak, flagged the waitress, and placed his order. While he waited, with the wonderfully pungent steam from his coffee rising up and around his unshaven face, he mentally stepped through the hoops that awaited him in the coming weeks. All the stuff he’d worked out with Paulo and Shim seemed so easy now that he was out. The contacts, the routes, everything. Everything except Caslon; that was going to be tough.

If there was on thing Hector Montoya truly hated, it was flies. And the flats on the lower end of the Laguna Miera were the worst place for flies he’d ever seen. Jesus, he could hardly get any fishing done, needing as he did a ceaselessly swatting hand to keep the great buzzing mass of sand flies at bay. The Backwoods Off had given up the ghost an hour ago, but the fishing—of course—had started to peak at exactly the same time. In the livewell of his little 16-foot runabout, three nice redfish and a fat sea trout hammered away at their confines. Hector made a long cast up against the shoals, settled back in the captain’s seat, and started a slow retrieve when his cell rang. Good God, why did he bring the damn thing?

“Montoya.”

“Hector?”

“Yeah, it’s Hector. Who the hell do you think it is?”

Derek Larson’s distinctively thin voice went dead for a moment as he tried to decide how deeply he’d just wounded himself by calling the boss while he was fishing.

“It’s Derek. Sorry to bother you, but we just brought a guy in for that theft in Ft. Griff last week. He was trying to sell a bunch of computer stuff to Schnabel’s. Everything matches; there was a buttload of stuff in the trunk of his car, and we’re running the prints right now. Art said you’d want to know.”

It must have been the flies; Hector felt peevish, hostile, and a little loopy at the same time.

“Jesus Derek, can’t you guys do anything without me there? I mean I’ve been trying to get down here and fish since April. Just a few hours without the goddamned phone ringing. And every friggin’ time I do, something comes up! What do you want me to do now, come down there and show you guys how to use the fingerprint kit? Boot the computer up for you? Hell’s bells…”

“Sorry, Hector. Art just said you’d want to know.”

Truth be told, Montoya was a bit relieved to have an excuse to escape the flies and the heat. And he had three good fish for the freezer. It actually worked out okay. As much as he believed he loved to get away by himself for a day on the water, he usually found some convenient reason to cut it short after a few hours. Indeed he generally got bored and antsy after “quality time” of any duration, and was always anxious to get back to work.

“Okay, well I guess you did the right thing then. So who’s our little thief?”

“Kid named Allen Hall. Skinny little bastard from Port Arthur. He’s got a bunch of priors, all from over around Galveston, mostly petty dumbshit stuff.”

Hector had to turn the phone aside and chuckle. Derek had a tough-cop patter that heated up when a suspect was brought in. In the station they all called him “Barney Fife,” and Hector could picture Derek now, leaning against the door jam, probably inspecting his nails as he reported the play-by-play to his boss.

“Alright, fine. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. You guys know how to run this till I get there, right?”

“Yeah sure, Hector, sure.”

“Remember that print kit needs to be refrigerated for at least twenty minutes before you do the finals. And those forms have to be filled out in front of a witness this time. Don’t screw that up again, right?”

“Jeez no, Hector. We’re all good-to-go on that stuff, don’t worry.”

“Well alright. I’m on my way.”

As he closed out the call his rod tip banged down hard against the boat’s gunwale and he nearly lost his grip on the cork handle as a wildly-determined redfish tore away across the shoals, Hector’s silver Rapala lure implanted firmly in its lower jaw.

“Or not…”

My partner and I are having a rather nasty argument over something that really shouldn’t be all that contentious. We’ve both agreed that we’ll let you mediate for us and that we’ll abide by whatever you say.

Briefly, we’re having a large gathering for Thanksgiving, and we’ll be serving Atlantic salmon. My partner insists that all cold-water pelagic fishes should be accompanied with a very jazzy Nouveau Beaujolais. That’s just so gross, don’t you think?

I’m advocating something safe, like a mid-latitude California Riesling, preferably bottled in late 2007.

Please tell me I’m right.

Signed,

Dying to Say I-Told-You-So in NoBo

Dear Dying to Say I-Told-You-So in NoBo,

This all depends on how you prepare the salmon. Will you be microwaving it or frying it in Crisco?

If you go with the microwave (set on “defrost” for about five hours), I’d stick with the Beaujolais (pronounced “Bo-jealous,” in case you’re curious).

The Crisco method cries out for something athletic, but not sweaty, like Blue Nun. California Riesling would work okay, I suppose, but be sure to have plenty of Pringles on hand… especially if Steve Bailey is on your guest list.

Hope I’ve helped,

Dave

Sorry if I’m a bit out of breath. I just finished trimming the hedges… again. Third time this week.

It’s not that I’m lacking for things to do, mind you. It’s just that right now I’m sitting squarely on the fence between flyfishing and ski season, and life is a bit slow.

You see, I’m recently retired. I was the director of a large IT group at a major university, and, with a few glaring exceptions, it was a fabulous job. Interesting people and wicked problems made my workdays at once challenging and tremendously rewarding.

But, as they say, that was then. Unfortunately, as much as I love building birdhouses out of plastic milk jugs - you should see the cute little sparrow’s A-frame I just finished! - and having breakfast with my friends at Denny’s, I’m finding life a little, well, dull.

Any suggestions for guys like me?

Signed,

Waiting for Dancing with the Stars to Come on at Seven in Louisville

Dear Waiting for Dancing with the Stars to Come on at Seven in Louisville,

I’m glad you brought this sensitive and timely subject to light for all of us. As the Baby Boomer generation bumps gently against the dock, this tragic problem of the bowel-clogging ennui which accompanies retirement will surely garner increased attention. Thank you for being a brave pioneer!

Personally, I’ve drawn upon my decades of experience as a competitive speed walker and am currently using the time-honored racer’s practice of “just-screwing-around-and-going-through-the-motions” to prepare myself for my golden years.

Rather than waiting for my retirement to begin before, say, making little clay toothpick caddys at the Rec Center, or hanging out at Home Depot and asking complete strangers if they can help me find my lower dentures, I do these things now. I consider this a high-level form of training. I’m not really sound asleep in meetings or arguing with my own reflection in appliance store windows, I’m simply practicing. And these Dear Dave letters I write to myself? Ditto. They’ve given me a solid feel for what it will be like to be ignored, unpaid, and irrelevant. I love it already!

This approach is, of course, useless for you; you’ve already hit the wall. But I do have a thought which may help fill your days and ease your discomfort: The Frenzy is hiring greeters.

That’s right; after years of stumbling around in the dark, those overcooked troglodytes down in Frenzy HQ have decided to throw the doors open to the public. They’ll be offering tours of their whole wretched facility - the archives, the store, the “Hurt Locker” (the storage closet where they keep their workout clothes), everything. They’re looking for folks with strong constitutions and a thorough understanding of dysfunctional organizations. Pay is commensurate with experience (divided by fifty), and the magazines in the break room are all from this year. Mostly.

If you can stand long hours on your feet, cramped, poorly-lit corridors, and Steve Bailey, this might just be the answer for you. Give them a holler before they decide on another sucker… er, candidate.

And, did you say DwtS starts at seven?

Dave