25



SUPERMODEL ASSISTANT: Mr. President, the nuclear bomb has exploded.

POTUS: Well, where the fuck is it? You said to sit on the right and I could see it!

SA: Uh, that’s the left, Mr. President.

POTUS: Well if you were talkin’ on the right it would be, now wouldn’t it? !?. Laura, which side is the right?

LAURA: George, you can see the bomb.

POTUS: Don’t get all “pissy librarian” with me, missy. Looks good,. Now what?

SA: Well Sir, we should retaliate against the governments that plotted the bomb.

POTUS: Well I knew that. DUH! What’s going on? Let’s kill someone!

JACK BAUER: We thought you would want to approve our line of action, Sir.

POTUS: Whatever! Get scootin!

JB: We thought you might talk to the leaders Sir.

POTUS: Leaders, schmeaders! We all saw the fuckin’ bomb!

JB: Yes Sir, but this could be World War III.

POTUS: Lemme see. There was this one war, yeah. Was that the one with the Nazis, Laura?

L: Hold on, George. Let me look it up.

POTUS: Then World War II where we went to Golf. Yeah, I’m expectulating this could be three.

JB: This could only lead to disaster Sir.

POTUS: Well boo hoo hoo. This is WAR, boy! Now get me a picture of an a-rab. In one of those funny hats.

L: Now I do know those are called turbans.

POTUS: I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of car they drive! Skeedadle, all of you! I need to pensipate on this occasion.

L: Think, dear.

POTUS: I’m tryin’, hold on. Just give me a few hours.



10:36:36 PM    sro home /

SPRING


Before spring arrived, Bob’s ex-wife took their children and moved out of their house. They were two different creatures, he and she. She was like a raging storm while Bob was like the gutters that lined the roof. She was not kind to him and had filled Bob’s life with the force of her anger. While Bob suspected he was better off without her, it was a tough blow. When she left, the sudden emptiness of his house was a surprise. Bob had reached the age when things stopped coming and started going and he was unprepared for his life to feel so empty.

The events made Bob think. Bob thought about things alot and the sudden absence of people and plans left more room to wander. He walked through his house, through his garden, past the birdbath by the window where the showy birds preened and down to where water leaked from the end of the hose. There stood a ladder which he climbed and could see further than ever, like an empty lighthouse on a cliff. Bob looked over the fence around his house to other people’s yards. Here high above the ground, his life seemed far away and next to other buildings, his house was small indeed.

Bob collected ladders, building each one in his basement. His wife thought building ladders was a mindless task, each just a larger version of the last. To Bob, every ladder led to a place of it’s own and it’s measurements were unique. He leaned them against a wall in the basement like crutches waiting to help people walk. He’d compare their heights, each one proving how tall he’d been. He remembered he’d once been scared to climb but now each step filled him with pride at how high he’d gone. They were tall but not tall enough to see his sudden loss. Soon, Bob thought, he’d begin another ladder, one so tall he might never reach the top. Certainly that would be the last ladder he would build. It would stand so high his house would seem lost below him.

At night, Bob would walk down the garden and climb his ladder to look at the stars. Once he thought he saw another person perched on a ladder like him. He would have waved but was too scared to let go of his wooden seat. Instead he sat and wondered how many Ladder People walked through the streets never knowing about the others. They’d pass and nod while quietly carrying their secret heights.

The room where his children had lived was dark behind the shades. From his ladder, they were like blank screens of drive-ins at night. He’d looked at their photos until his memories became like snapshots. He thought of them looking out at him, their waves frozen mid-air. That night he gathered their pictures and sealed them in a box. In the basement, Bob slid the box under blankets his mother had given him, smoothing the worn cloth and wrapping himself in dusty warmth.

When he was sad, Bob took his grief to the top of his ladder where he nursed it like a bird with a broken wing. Perhaps closer to the sky he could teach it to fly again. He’d cry and his sobs would leap from his mouth before falling to earth in great lumps of pain. At the bottom of his ladder their bones would sink like dinosaurs into tar around him. His sorrow would harden, the land itself rising towards his perch above the flowers and grass.

When Spring came, his garden burst into leaves. His ladder stood from the bushes like the trunk of a dead tree. When he climbed now, it would creak and sway under his weight like the prow of a ship at sea. The lawn lapped the base and he set course by the stars above, hoping the sky would lead him home. On shore would be those he loved, waiting for his safe return.

Finally, when the lights around him all turned dark, Bob wearily came down step by step. Past the perennials, past the grass, his house was waiting. He folded his ladder and carried it over the porch and through the back door. He turned off the kitchen light and took the ladder to an empty room where he laid it down like a sleeping child. Another night, another Spring, another year, another day. Bob dreamt that night of his house and his garden. He dreamt of climbing and climbing before releasing his past from his cupped hands to fly away and vanish in the dark.

5:00:38 PM    sro home /