Month: February 2012

Julian read the latest installment of “Amy Tells All” as he sat on his couch, drink in hand. He glanced over at Dana, on her couch; furiously typing away on Facebook, drink half finished. His wife’s furrowed brow soon un-creased into a smile. Then, in another beat, she burst out laughing. “What’s so funny, Dana?” “Oh. It’s just this stupid asshole in the gardener’s going on about stuff he does in the winter months to keep from going stir crazy…” Julian didn’t garden. He had a brown thumb, which was kind of a joke between them. He turned back to his laptop, and looked again at the last sentence of Amy’s post. He absentmindedly typed the name ‘Amy Lissa’ into that little Google window on the World Wide Web, and hit return. He had done this countless times before, caught in the web of a compulsion he thought was dubious, not only because it never bore fruit, but also because he questioned its ethics. This time, the search went differently. Now instead of the usual non-relevant Amys and Lissae, there was an entry for “Connections.” He clicked. Lo and behold, there was a familiar picture of the full throttle Amy,…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 17, 2012

Lana got home from shopping in town. She had two more days of Scott-free life. She put her bags down, and flopped on the couch to check her email. There were two, one from a person named Julian Gray, a stranger who’d commented on one of the “Connections” posts, and the other from Lisa, who she’d just seen at a café a few hours ago. She peeked at Lisa first: “Hey sweetness. Have you looked at Facebook lately? You might want to check it out. Amy’s getting quite the like volume. Also, it might be a good idea to get a stat counter on that blog.” Obeying instructions, she aimed her browser at Facebook. Nothing seemed amiss. There was nothing to see. A few messages from old friends and new, but other than that, she had no idea what Lisa was talking about. As luck would have it, nobody, except now for Lisa, had thought to share Amy with Lana. Lana emailed Lisa back, “Nothing out of the ordinary on Facebook. What are you seeing that I’m not seeing?” She then turned her attention to this Gray dude. Oh. My. God. Her god had blessed her with an intelligent, even…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 17, 2012

Lana was expecting Scott back at any moment. She had her computer beside her on the couch, and the cats were nowhere to be seen. They knew something she didn’t. She was testy and furtive about the computer. She yielded to temptation, and opened it. She rubbed its belly and brought it to life. Facebook was quiet, but there was a link from Lisa to a “Fans of Amy Tells All” page. Holy batshit! That seemed crazy to her. Her eyes were wide with a mixture of pride and alarm. She clicked open a new tab, and checked her email. There was a smattering of them, but the one that mattered was from Julian Gray. One of the others also made her heart leap. It was from “Harper’s Magazine.” She looked at that one first. “Dear Lana, We’re emailing to ask if you are the author of a blog called “Amy Tells All.” If so, we’d like to run your piece “The M Word,” edited of course, in the upcoming (March) issue of the magazine in the “Readings” section. We require email confirmation giving us permission to edit and publish. We will of course share our final copy with you…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 18, 2012

Julian spent some time reading his last attempt at a novel, and came away depleted. It was as if the book had sucked the life out of him without becoming alive itself. It was a black hole of fictional death. That being the case, it was more fun to check out the doings on “Amy Tells All.” Now that they had made contact, he could legitimately see himself echoed in her prose. He felt completely enraptured by the idea that she thought his presence in her life was miraculous. He turned his attention to crafting a bauble of equal froth, but in his own way. He was not sure that he succeeded. He mused about the fact that his novel was a pile of shit. If that amused her, it seemed to him, she’d take him as he truly was. He posted it. By the time he got back downstairs again, Dana was passed out on her couch. He looked around for the schweinebraten recipe, so that he’d know when it was done and take it out. He couldn’t find anything. Dana was working from memory on this pig roast project. He googled it. ‘Take it out ahead of the…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 18, 2012

Lana spent the next morning shopping around town for gimcrack gifts to take to the Christmas Eve Christmas party at the Millers. This was a tradition with them that this party would happen at one home or another of their gang. The gang this year included the Roiters, the Millers and the Sibleys as well as the Andrews. In the early afternoon she brought her usual flair to the wrapping. She calligraphed little notes with her pens and her inks, and her little poems summed up the friendships and the year nearly vanished. Scott was out at the airstrip, working on orders and maintenance. He usually left her to deal with the holiday chores. Every now and then, he’d surprise her and come up with some outlandish decorating idea, usually involving fireworks or electronics. One year, he’d jimmied the head lolling white wire reindeer to periodically work in double time. Every time it happened while he was looking out the window, he’d laugh like a child. She cherished such memories, as they dwindled and became fewer and farther between. He’d become a business automaton of late, trying to break his personal records, and, as he put it, trying to ‘make…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 19, 2012

On Christmas Eve, Julian and Lana partook of the rescued sweinebraten and Julian concocted a massive salad. They sat across from one another in their decorated dining room, feeling the joy of each others presence, looking forward to the exchanging of their presents, and feeling somewhat proud of one another that they had held off on the demon rum long enough to prepare and eat supper. It was about five thirty in the afternoon. The sun had just settled down out of sight, leaving the colors and twinkles that draped around their tree to bathe them in a mercurial flicker. The ancient electric chandelier was dimmed, and its orange glow hovered over them. “A toast,” Julian offered, raising his familiar jelly glass. “To you and me forever, and another year together.” “I’ll drink to that.” “‘It’s my first one today.’” “Indeed.” The language they spoke among themselves was full of quotes and allusions. These two helplessly verbal people had too much vocabulary and reading under their belts for ordinary humans, their neighbors, for example, to make heads or tails of them, unless they made a serious effort to clean it up and communicate. They were capable of this; when neighbor…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 21, 2012

Lana remained in the bedroom for an inordinately long time, feeling like a scolded teenager, and resenting the feeling. Scott’s dangled carrot of conciliation was just that: a carrot. He had not offered any sort of autonomy; he had only issued his usual demand in sugarcoated form. Eventually, she dressed in pajamas and went downstairs. Scott was on the sofa reading the same brochure he’d been reading earlier. Nothing had changed between them, nothing had happened. If she was going to feel like a slut, she might as well do it with someone who appreciated her and spoke the King’s English. She would have emailed Julian immediately, but she couldn’t. ‘Why was that?’ she fumed to herself. ‘Because my assholian husband is here, ignoring me,’ she snarkily answered herself. She went looking for Tory and Mea, but they were hiding somewhere. “Have you seen the cats?” She asked. “Nope.” “Why is it they disappear when you are around?” Was she picking a fight? “They know I don’t like them.” “How do they know that?” “How the fuck would I know? They’re fucking cats!” There, the venom in his voice was plain. If he wanted to have a knockdown drag out,…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 22, 2012

By the light of day, and in all sobriety Dana Feminita noticed that her husband was profoundly antsy all of a sudden. He’d be pounding away on that battered laptop of his, and then he’d pop up and pace. Usually, he just pounded without the pacing. Creative process? Couldn’t hurt to inquire. “Julian.” “Yep?” “That’s the third time in this hour you’ve gotten up to pace. Are you having trouble passing a passage?” “Man! Woman! Mother of god!” “That’s a yes, I gather.” “I’m reading what I wrote in summer, and I’m trying to make it over so that it doesn’t make me either want to puke, or put me to sleep.” “The life of the novelist?” “Pitiful.” He sat back down and went back to pounding. It was true, after a fashion that he was working on a novel. It just wasn’t the one he’d written over the summer. It was some new crazy thing that was unfolding in real-time and there seemed to be actual skin in the game. His mind was working on the implications of having Lana’s phone number. Did he even dare to talk to her in extreme real-time, voice to voice, without the benefit…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 22, 2012

After reading Julian’s blog, she understood that he was struggling with his decision. She pondered, though only after hitting send, that she had gone way, way too far. Not only was she not being coy, she was being brazen in public. There was a word for this, but she couldn’t quite think of it at the moment. Was she a femme fatale? He’d sort of started it with that ‘muse’ notion. As far as her readership was concerned, she had forgotten about it except for the two readers she directly addressed. One, her husband, was not a known reader. The other, Julian, was used to having his mettle tested. Lana didn’t think you could teach literature in a college and not be somewhat heroic. Julian, after reading the latest on “Amy Tells All,” understood that she was forgetting how mainstream that blog had become. He could read that she appreciated some of the risk factor, but she clearly didn’t understand that she was live coast to coast. She had to be warned about that. He also understood that she was auditioning him for an affair. That she would propose this in public was terrifying. His students were all over that…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 22, 2012

When Julian got home from his office, Dana was passed out already on the couch. Her laptop had fallen to the floor, and Facebook was flickering furiously. He let all of that be and set about preparing for tomorrows trip to Salem. First of all, where was it? How far away? He looked it up on Mapquest. If he went up to I68W, it was about 3 ½ hours west. If he took the more straight shot, 50W, it would take about 4 hours one way. So what was he going to tell Dana? He also had to think about appearances. There was nothing he could do about his paunch. Was there anything he could do about his appearance at all? What the hell was he going to wear? If he got dressed up in any way, Dana would understand what he was up to, and that would never do. He put some shoes, a shirt and a tie and an old suit jacket in a bag and took these out to the car. That was about the extent of his prep. Early the next morning, Julian and Dana met in the kitchen to talk about breakfast. They sipped the…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 25, 2012