My wife gets home, and we quickly eat; I tidy up while it’s her turn to change out of the day’s work clothes and to get ready. I’m reading the first Summer 25 for Joy Deficit, a local live-lit/performance held on the fourth Monday of the month at the Red Light Cafe, off Amsterdam in the heart of Atlanta, right beside the Botanical Garden. I plan to debut the project here, then publish the first issue the next day. I reread the piece a few more times, then I see how I can hold the phone in my hand and show off the copy of George Grosz’ Ecco Homo when I mention it in the reading. Maybe I’m afraid someone will doubt the veracity of my piece. I have no reason to think that but when has that ever stopped me? I pick up my copy of The Rebel and try to ignore the growing nerves. I worry my morning’s application of deodorant won’t be sufficient so I re-apply.

I’ve always been afraid of talking in front of people or performing. I dreaded my turn to read aloud to the class. It was torture to be picked at random, but even if there was an order, I would be inwardly panicking and tracking how long each person before me was taking and about where I would need to read.

I wasn’t always nervous playing trumpet; in fact, I quite enjoyed playing. But one summer during karate, I took a kick to the face after time was called. We probably should have gone to the ER to get stitches but for whatever reason, we didn’t. It eventually healed, but I had to relearn the instrument with a fatter lip. I can still feel the scar with my tongue. I was too scared to play solo anymore. First chair trumpet would play a sustained G for the rest of the band to tune around. I couldn’t sustain the note from all the trembling.

Like a lot of other college kids, I experimented with improv. I had wanted to be a comedian for a long time, but I was too scared to be very good at it; too in my own head.

At least with writing, I can remain as elusive as I want. I figured to go the path of a Salinger- or Pynchon-style recluse writer weirdo.

My partner in Summer 25 stipulated we should not dwell on negativity but focus on the positive. Likewise, Joy Deficit is about sharing and creating joy within our community. For me, that is easier said than done. I’ve never considered my writing to be particularly cheerful. To paraphrase Joan Didion, my work is full of joy; it’s just not happy. It made me nervous to not only share my original writing to an audience, but to share something I wasn’t sure fit the M.O. of the show. Sharing Summer 25 to an audience takes my nerves to the next level. There is no character to hide behind. Auzelle and I started this as an experiment between writing partners, but as I wrote the first one, I had, not the thought of reading it at Joy Deficit, but the thought of what Joy Deficit inspires in me. The show has inspired me to action, expressed through this summer writing project. The theme for July’s show is ‘resist’. Kismet.

I was wrong to worry about ‘joy’. I fixated on the noun form, worried about not having enough of it to share. But joy can be a verb. To rejoice. To feel and show joy and delight. I was also wrong to be worried. The community at Joy Deficit is loving and accepting, and as Gina reminds us performers before we return to our seats, she’s there to kick anyone’s ass that needs it. I wouldn’t have had the courage to read my work if she hadn’t been in the wings willing to lend some of hers. She is the heart of Joy Deficit and to me, the heart of the Atlanta performance scene. She created a place for us to gather, even when it’s hard. Even when the world is ugly—especially in those times. It’s easy to stay at home, to hide from everything. It’s hard dealing with the July heat and the Atlanta traffic. It’s hard to overcome apathy and to take action. But those are the times when community is most important. I didn’t need to worry about what type of joy I brought, as long as I was willing to share what I had. All I needed was to find a place to gather, a community with which to pool our collective joys so they may be fruitful and multiply.

I didn’t plan to attend all three games. If you had told me this was going to happen even at the start of this year, I’d have thought you were crazy. Baseball was a not-insignificant part of my childhood. I played Little League and fall ball. I had just turned 6 days before Kirby Puckett hit a walk-off homer in the 1991 World Series, leading to a Game 7 loss for my Braves. Somehow that didn’t lead to me hating Kirby Puckett but idolizing him. I watched the Brave win the World Series in 95 and that was that. I’ve always loved a happy ending, so where else could my fandom go? By that point, years of shitty coaches drove any love of playing I might have had out of me.

I still had my baseball cards then—a collection started by my grandfather when I was born. We kept the cards in a Dole banana box we got from the produce manager at the Winn-Dixie down the road. We had cards in three-inch binders, in long white cardboard boxes, plastic cases that clicked together. I had Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer—I had the sets that came with Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast sausage patties. I had two porcelain Nolan Ryan cards that had their own special boxes like jewelry sometimes comes in, with thin sheets of cotton to keep them safe. I had the baseball Raphael Billiard signed at one of the few games I got to attend in person. I don’t know where these ended up.

Sadly, cards are why I got back into baseball this year. Too many people I knew were buying cards and showing them off and I got the itch. There’s an incredible dopamine rush when opening a pack of cards and Topps has it down to a science. They celebrate the 35th anniversary with a throwback design from that year, a choice I realize coincides with the fact that 35 years ago I was a 5 year old boy. Weaponized nostalgia.

It used to be you had base cards and inserts, but those were in the days of my youth now called the ‘Junk Wax’ era—years signified by increased product availability and over-saturation of the market leading to worthless cards. Not that you could convince anyone of that at the time. The baby boomers were becoming middle-aged and looked back at the toys and games of their youths, hoping to recapture lost innocence when they discovered how rare and valuable these things were now. Baseball cards and comic books were disposable goods of childhood, not things you keep around. Increased interest lead to higher print runs. The Death of Superman had no value because everyone bought it. Special covers with holographic foil and lenticular images didn’t matter in the long run. But with that mindset we have the modern collectible card market, where there are variations of variants left and right. People argue with strangers on Facebook on whether the card someone found was the blue holofoil or the teal. They stamp some cards to indicate that it is card X out of one thousand, out of a hundred, out of ten, and the grail, one of one. You can find autographs and chunks of baseballs or jerseys on cards. You don’t even have to open your own cards: You can buy spots for your favorite teams on eBay or WhatNot and watch guys break open dozens of packs, boxes of cards, cases even—shuffling through hundreds of cards filmed so the cards and hands are never off-camera, nimble fingers displaying for the live stream the cards then sorting into piles based on value and for the really valuable ones, they get put into a penny sleeve and then a top loader. You can pay companies to grade your cards, to prove their authenticity and quality, so that you could maybe sell that card and make a lot of money. Someone sold the Paul Skenes 1/1 patch card for $1.1 million. The serotonin rush from opening a pack of cards got nothing on legalized gambling.

It’s an evening game so we rushed from work. We got there early to get the giveaway Braves trucker hats. Someone taps me on the shoulder as we’re walking towards the entrance. The guy introduces himself as the ballpark videographer. He wanted to pair me in my Giants jersey with a guy in a Braves one. “You’re buddies going to the ballpark to watch their respective teams, ready to root hard for—” he pauses to read the back of my jersey, “Mike Yastrzemski…”. His voice trails off, then he points at the other jersey, “and Ronald Acuña Jr!” My faux friend and I walk side-by-side almost to the ticket taker before the videographer tells us we’re good. My wife and I get two hats, then buy some Korean cheesesteaks. We sit on a bench and start to eat. An old man points to my jersey and my wife’s Dodger’s shirt. “Divided household, eh?” Tonight’s is his 30th and final ballpark, and he shows me the patches from the different ballparks sewn into his own Giants jersey. Blooper, the Braves mascot, flashes me when he sees my jersey. The Giants come out and warm up right in front of our seats. Blooper gets behind Jung Hoo Lee and starts mimicking his calisthenics. Mike is warming up too. Heliot Ramos spots a kid wearing his jersey and comes over and signs it for him. A 3-year old in an Austin Riley jersey runs down the aisle into the open-armed hug of her grandpa. He scoops her up and spins her around as he takes her to their seats.

The sun has set. The Giants are losing. I chirp Nick Allen for looking like Rick Moranis. We leave in the 8th inning.

Next evening, I walk into Truist Park in the same Giants jersey, only this time with my real friend wearing a Ronald Acuña Jr jersey. I give him an extra trucker hat from the night before. Our seats are so close we could touch right field, something the friendly usher warns us not to do. Both Yaz and Ronnie play in right field, although tonight my other favorite, Luis Matos, is subbing in for Mike. My jersey will go unsigned. My friend boos when the Giants are announced, giving me a big thumbs down in my face. A beer vendor tells me he likes my Yastrzemski jersey; he sometimes works at Oracle Park in San Francisco when he gets bored of the east coast. The little boy behind us yells for Ronald. “Tell him it’s your 5th birthday!” his mom advises him. Ronald finishes with his 4th inning warm-up and tosses the practice ball so it bounces off right field and to our section, over me and my friend, into the hands of the birthday boy’s father. He hands it to the boy who starts dancing up and down.

The Giants are winning. We leave in the 8th.

The deciding game of the series is a Wednesday noon game. This was the only game I originally planned to attend but sometimes fate has other ideas. Kismet. I used a website to determine the best seats for shade from the vicious July sun. I was wrong and sit in full sun. By the time the series is over, I have a deep-V farmer’s tan and burnt legs where my shorts did not cover my knees. This is the only game I’ve gone to by myself. It rains a little before the game starts, which only makes the air that much more oppressive. The lady next to me is in a Braves hat, but points to my jersey and tells me how she’s from Boston so Mike’s okay in her book. We talk about Mike’s grandfather Carl, and how I have to go to a game at Fenway. She shows me a Blooper stuffed doll she bought for her grandson. “He’s crazy for Blooper—at least on TV. We brought him to a game and when he saw Blooper coming, his eyes got wide and he buried his head in my shoulder.”

I stay for the entire game this time. The Giants win. Justin Verlander’s first win of the season. I sit in front of the bronze Bobby Cox statue as I wait for my ride. A group of guys in Yankees and Braves jersey walk over and ask if I’ll take their photo in front of the Truist Park entrance. I take a few and hand the guy his phone back. The Braves fans start walking but the Yankees fans hold back, looking at the photos they took. Once their buddies were out of earshot, they both look at me.

The one on the left says, “that hadda feel good, huh?”

The one on the right says, “Fuck tha Braves!”

They both laugh, and they both slap my shoulders as they run to catch up with their buddies in Braves jerseys. They put their arms around their pals shoulders and walk towards the bars already packed at 4PM on a Wednesday.

The laundry room is at the rear of the house. Two of its three windows open out onto the backyard. Rotting railroad ties form a failing barrier against the sprawling hill, creating a ten-foot wide flat alley of a yard. The center of the wall is cut away; cinder blocks form stairs to the sloping side of the yard. Seeds fall into the cinder block holes, giving weeds and saplings room to take root and spring from the cracks. The yard is shielded from the neighbors by untamed Georgia woodland, a primitive division of land along property lines. Manicured lawns end at the stark reminder of what the land once was. Briars run the meridian of sun and shade, producing wild blackberries that grow ripe and red; ripening and growing sweet, soft and a dulled black-purple that attracts the eyes of nearby birds, further propagating the thorns.

It’s been a particularly rainy season. People on Teams calls joke that Georgia’s turning into Florida. Daily scattered thunderstorms do nothing to combat the heat; if anything, the near-absolute humidity traps the heat in the air. Going outside is like stepping into a sauna, making one’s skin tacky and one’s shirt clingy. One benefit is an increase of fireflies. They grow more active on rainy days, although not when it’s non-stop. The optimal days for fireflies come when the rains stop in the evening. The entire life cycle depends on wet conditions. The eggs will wither and die, so the mothers seek out moist dirt or nearby water sources. The larvae that survive burst from their eggs with a hunger. They prefer rainy days because that’s when worms and snails and other prey come out. I don’t know why the adults prefer wet conditions—they eat pollen, if they eat at all. Their whole existence is around becoming a blinking plea in the dark.

What I read leads me to what I read next. I’ve been circling another George, of sorts—Georges Bataille. He left footprints that Kathy Acker could stomp through—seeing (Story of an) eye to (Portrait of an) eye. I run my fingers along the roots I’m tracing, a dotted line connecting Bataille to Kathy—she believed she was the reincarnation of his lover Laure, born Colette Peignot. Laure’s biography brings my first Rimbaud mention—Kathy used Rimbaud in In Memoriam to Identity. He shows up next in The Rebel, a work about artists during rebellion and revolt. Rimbaud, the poet of rebellion. I buy his works and read A Season in Hell—and I marvel at such an elegant quitting of art. There is no shame in that, of course. I’ve known those who quit not for the lack of love but because of too much of the world.

He became a visionary by debasing his life, disorganizing his senses, exhausting within himself all poisons and preserving their quintessence. But what of us born disorganized? I thought exhausting poisons was the norm. What happens when the visionary can’t close his eyes? Camus cannot deny Rimbaud’s work, but not his later life. The poet of rebellion become a colonizer and arms dealer. Even the translator of his complete works can’t hide his disgust in his introductions to Rimbaud’s Harar letters. The prophet turned profitless is only irony that he sold his soul for failure. Forgive me for butchering this thought of Camus’: it’s the right of an artist to observe, but it’s the duty of a man to act.

We arrive late to my writing partner’s house. She’s having a celebration for the release of her novel Lavender & Gin. She opens the door and during our hugs, we nearly let her cat out the front door. We get plates of lasagna and walk to the living room, where the other guests chat and finish their meals. A kind couple get up, carrying their plates and cups and motioning to take their spot on the couch. While we eat, Abigail thanks everyone for coming out. She is wearing a cream-colored silk dress beneath an emerald green velvet robe, held together by a belt with gold tassels. The music is authentic jazz and blues from artists who frequented the pansy bars of prohibition, the setting of the novel. Someone calls for her to read us a passage and she obliges.

We drink, kiss, talk, love, without looking over our shoulders. We need friends then we care for and protect one another. We’ll always find each other and create new spaces for ourselves. It’s an honor for me to do it. It’s worth every risk.

She closes her earmarked copy. There is applause and a few people wipe at the corners of their eyes. Her advanced readers resonated with that passage and the room reflects on the grotesquely named Big Beautiful Bill, an outright mocking of the people whose lives will be lost through hate. What we need, she tells us, are our communities. To not stay at home. To check in on each other, because we’re the only ones left to do it. Everyone in this room is my community, she concludes, and we’re all we have left. The applause is even louder this time.

The rain stops around 6, giving the ground enough time to dry before the sun sets. Dozens of male fireflies—they’re the only ones who fly—blink bioluminescent signals against the darkening sky. When the female firefly is drawn to a particular blink, she sends her own yellow-green response from the ground. The backyard is alive with unsynchronized flashes. One zips right by the window, a dash among the dots. Desperate neon flashes pleading to see an answer. From the window, I can’t see the flat lawn and anything in the hill disappears among the flashing males. I won’t be able to see a response if I stay inside, where it’s cool, dry and calm. I slip on some shoes and step out into the dark, searching for a signal.

We—or some configuration of this group—have floated together down Georgia waterways for more than a decade. This is our first time tubing the Etowah River. This configuration is well-prepared: we each take sun protection out of our totes. One uses the spray-bottle applicator type, while another wows us with what appears to be Reddi-Wip, dispensing sun screen like little dollops of whipped cream. Like a Luddite, I lather on 70 SPF lotion after my wife hands me the squeeze tube.

We walk through the paved parking lot. The only spots worthy of having their fissures filled with tar snakes are the elongated spots for trucks towing boats trailers. The tubing company is set up in a flat grass lot edged by trees and the start of a soccer compound. A small camper acts as the main hub; the different purchasables on display beneath the pull-out awning; partially disassembled shipping containers, like the ones you see on large ships, have a few chairs and tables for outdoor lounging; inner tubes are stacked two tubes high with a third diagonal acting as an anchor; kayaks lay on either side in tight, slanting formations.

The teen cashier tells us that walk-ins are limited to the 2-hour float—which is all we had planned for. We scan the QR code and get enough signal to sign the liability waiver. Two workers—one older and one younger—load our inner tubes into a trailer attached to a small shuttle—like those you take at the airport. There is air conditioning and a radio. The younger worker gets on and sits in the front. My friend is waiting to drop her keys off with the cashier who is busy with other customers. The older worker gets on, closes the door and starts to drive off. The manager bangs on the side of the van. He leads my friend to the shuttle and takes her keys, runs over to the trailer, and hands them to the girl over the other customer’s heads.

We take a long drive through Rome and arrive at another public boat dock. The workers get off first and start unloading the tubes. They hand one to me, which I hand to my wife and then I get another for myself. Lyndsey takes the tube from the younger worker, who offers to carry it to the river for her. Kimberly lets him carry her inner tube, and is the first one to be helped into the water. The only way is for the workers to hold the tube while you launch yourself backwards into the tube and onto the water. The workers help the rest of us in turn; and out we turned, like Rimbaud, onto a river we could not control.

Helen, GA is a town in the Appalachian Mountains designed to look like an alpine village. All the buildings in Helen look Bavarian; I was always told that is why there is a Wendy’s and not a McDonald’s in town. Something about the arches.

The town has grown a lot since I was a child—an obvious statement I know, but Helen’s position between the mountains and Chattahoochee River limits the amount they can truly expand. I’m glad the mainstays are still there—the novelty t-shirt shop with Christian parodies (“Got God?”) and the Three Stooges and Fife Security; the knife store with impractically designed blades; the fudge shoppes; the funnel cake stands; shops full of tacky trinkets and homemade tchotchkes. Newer additions include rolled ice cream, a Bigfoot statue, a store specializing in jerky, and the hot sauce store that specializes in sauces that threaten physical harm to your asshole if you dare try even a drop. There’s now a spa, a mountain coaster, ropes courses, and I’m sure lots of things I’ve simply been too old and nostalgic to notice.

I remember a shop at the outskirts of town owned by people of the Cherokee nation. I remember the cigar store Indian on the front stoop. They sold jewelry to the tourists who stopped on their way out of Helen. The owner was an old man; I remember him asking if I was Cherokee. I remember his kind eyes.

It’s now a cabin rental company.

The magic shop is gone and that’s a real bummer. I spent a lot of money in that shop—I still have a Svengali deck I bought there. It’s now where you take wild west photos. The car museum where, if the owner had shown up, I would have purchased a red 1975 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. It’s now a haunted house open during Oktoberfest. The Castle Inn is still there on Main Street, but the wax museum that terrified me is gone. I can only find one photo to prove it existed. I often wonder where those fairy tale figures have gone.

And it goes without saying, the river is still there.

It is the Chattahoochee that runs through Helen, but it’s the river in its infancy. It’s not unheard of for the river to dry completely in spots when there’s not been any rain, forcing the tubing companies to close during their busy season. Even when it’s been raining, you still have to get out and do a little bit of walking. You also have to deal with a river full of fellow tubers: whole families tethered together trying to pull themselves over the exposed rock; teenagers; intoxicated couples with bluetooth speakers; good dogs who stay in their inner tube.

The Cool River Tubing Company employs dozens of people—it’s not uncommon for the line for wristbands to go out the building, down the outside stairs, and along the sidewalk. The cashiers keep people moving; people who pay for lockers put their clothes and valuables in a tiny cube, then go outside to wait in line for the next repurposed school bus. While they wait, workers are pulling people from the river, passing off the tubes and getting them ready to load after getting a head count.

There are at least two school buses making the same loop over and over. One of the buses has a former Air Force disabled Dachshund with a permanent seat at the front of the bus—the driver told us she loves to say hi to the tubers.

The Etowah River is much wider and deeper than the Chattahoochee that passes through Helen. Most people sign up online for the long float, so we’re alone on the river. We can’t see the bottom of the river and if something were to happen while we were in the middle, we’d really have to swim for it to get to land. We paddle with our hands to feebly escape branches sticking out from the water.

“What three people do you want to hex?”

My mind draws a blank—I can’t think of one, let alone three. I beg off. “I only like bringing positivity into the world.” We spot a blue heron stalking along the waterline, waiting for the greedy fish to pop out of the river to snag the downed flies floating on the surface. The heron eyes us, turns its head, then takes flight—its powerful wings flap loudly before it glides along for a while, landing once it’s found a shady spot.

“Plus if the hex comes true, it comes back to you times three.”

The blue heron keeps pace with us for the next two hours: Fishing, flying, gliding, landing. We approach a pedestrian bridge along the river—the blue heron is ahead of us but before the bridge. An old man in an orange vest is taking photos with his phone. He waves. Kimberly flicks him off. The blue heron takes off as we approach, leading our way underneath the pedestrian bridge. “I’d say more if we were closer”. We pass beneath the bridge. Swallows build nests under bridges like these—from this distance, they look like dirt daubers flickering in and out of mud homes. I look back once we float past, but the old man didn’t follow. The blue heron keeps flapping his powerful wings, snapping like whips right above the waterline, and curves off left to an adjoining river. Kayakers paddle up that river, stopping to watch the blue heron fly by. They let the current take over and float along with us tubers. The young worker paddles out in a kayak and uses his paddle to poke our tubes along until we can be pulled out of the water. One by one, we make our way back to the parking lot, gathering beneath the tree shade, waiting for the shuttle to arrive.

A yellow-crowned night heron stalks along suburban Dallas streets. He stops to survey his surroundings: standing on long, leathery legs atop concrete pavers radiating with the heat of a Texas summer. Like myself, this is not its natural habitat but one this yellow-crowned night heron has made home. Yard after yard of maintained, watered lawns provide ample hunting for grubs beneath the grass—a DMZ of dirt separates lawn from sidewalk, the green and the gray run along perfect parallel lines. Nothing seems to rattle the bird, including the presence of two humans and a very skittish dog named Benji: he shares the name of the youngest son in the Faulkner I’m rereading. This time around I can follow Benji’s time jumps, and I can understand Quentin’s stream of consciousness, but where I struggle is with Jason’s hate—The writing in his chapter is simple; his words are simple and smooth, smug and righteous. Hate is that way. It’s easy to grasp, easy to understand. I haven’t read any further.

Yard signs warn of the impending threat of gambling on the city of Irving–pretend bogeymen seeking out souls like grubs with neon claws luminescent like the belly of a firefly. Never mind the legality: what have facts ever to do with fear-mongering? Don’t you know gambling attracts those types? I count the signs. A yellow-crowned night heron pecks at the base of the yard sign–the exposed lawn reveals excellent prey. The corrugated plastic shakes and shimmers with the dull yellow street lamp overhead. His majesty looks up at us, turns away—simply the passing of peasants in the presence of royalty. He wobbles, stops, looks around, stands still and stares.

There is no ground more hallowed than a used book store–I love to stalk the stacks, listening to the murmur of prophecy. I have found the right book at the right time too often to believe in coincidence. I find a book of illustrations in the wrong section of the flagship Half Price Books in Dallas–I’ve not heard of the artist, but I’m enthralled by the graphic, grotesque caricatures. In 1923–the year of Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch– the German Government suppressed this book by George Grosz on grounds that it defamed German morals. A day after buying the book, we learn the Kimbell art museum in Fort Worth has an exhibit of banned, degenerate art from 1900-1945 Germany. Tomorrow is the last day. We get up early and go first thing.

I see George’s name written on the wall separating the exhibit from the lobby. The promotional artwork looks so much like my friend Kayla’s wife that I send her a photo of the giant banner. Inside the exhibit, it’s as busy as you’d expect on closing day. I find the portrait and wait for the old couple in front of me to move so I can get a clear photo of the actual painting. The informational placard informs me that the painting is titled Sonja but the model is named Albertine–I think of Proust. She has a pack of Camel Cigarettes in front of her; I have no idea if Jenny ever smoked, or what her brand was, or would have been. Albertine was a Jew. The artist Franz Herda hid her in his studio until she could be smuggled out of Germany. Albertine Disparue. Her eyes haunt me until I turn away.

This is one of many, many paintings.

It’s overwhelming and I can hardly read the little placards without feeling déjà vu. I see reflected in the eyes and features and deportment the familiar faces of my friends. I’m horrified to think we’re no further one hundred years later–my hand balls itself into a fist; a silver bracelet of interlocking links dangles from my wrist. I wear a bracelet because Valentino wore one. The press considered Valentino’s bracelet to be a symbol of his effeminacy and degeneracy. Men didn’t wear bracelets until World War I–a war I see depicted before me: a soldier in a shattered gas mask dying in a tangle of barbed wire. I relax my hand and step to the right.

The next painting reminds me of a character in my writing partner’s novel–like the character Sophia, the subject is dressed like a flapper and represents the Neue Frau. The painting depicts the importance “of women in public life, in party life, in illegality, the resistance movement and in the fight for freedom and peace.” On the adjacent wall hangs a large triptych depicting the utter inhumanity of concentration camps. And I think of the Holocaust, and I think of the internment camps, and I think of Guantanamo, and I think of the Joads and I think of the migrants, from the Dust Bowl until today, searching for greener pastures and finding only hate and persecution; finding only police violence and terror. And I think of what I see every day in my news feed: on X, on Bluesky, on Instagram, on Facebook: In Gaza, in California, in Texas, in Georgia. And I think and I think and I think and I think and I think.

All around me is art created under greater danger than I’ve ever faced; artists who showed more courage than I’ve ever mustered. Art made because it had to be made: made in the face of hate, made against threats, made not despite of, no–In spite of a crumbling world. These artists had to create; they were compelled to create art in an artless, ugly world. Defiant, despairing, dreaming, degenerate: it doesn’t matter the emotion. What matters is art reaching out to the observer, offering human connection, offering human understanding in spite of being separated by time and space. It doesn’t matter the medium–art doesn’t exist only in a museum or in a used book store: theater, music, dance–sand castles defiant against the tide–

Art exists on stages, on street corners, in parlors and living rooms–performances that live on only in recollections, in a quickening heartbeat, in a mischievous smile. Art doesn’t exist in its permanence but in its aftermath–it is the spark that vanishes into flame.

What is it about June? June 10th, June 16th, June 24th—

A culvert runs behind the houses. There’s no water except when it rains, otherwise it’s been pretty well diverted. Across the culvert is a green space with two park benches, one of which is in the shade. You have to cross over a bridge to get there. I stop on the wood and iron bridge and stare at the bone-white, bone-dry culvert, and I think of Quentin staring out on the Charles River, flat irons in his coat pockets. And I think of Stephen Dedalus staring at the Atlantic, lost in his crisis of unfaith. Eyes staring on the same waters, separated by the sea, by time. I wonder if they could have helped each other, if Stephen could shoulder some of Quentin’s despair.

Sweat drips from my brow–I swat a mosquito on my calf. I sit on the shaded bench and write. I have forgotten how oppressive and unforgiving the Texas sun can be. Along the culvert comes a breeze: stiff and forceful. The pages of my notebook flutter and my pen clatters across the pavers, the ink seeping from the nib into the concrete. I want to keep writing but the wind has other ideas. I put the top on my pen, slip it into my front pocket then close the notebook, picking up my paperback and putting it on top. The wind blows hard and refuses to let up—a cooling, forceful breeze cutting through the June gloom.

The Lake Lucklier Elementary School cafeteria stirred with activity. Janitors worked in two's to move the lunch tables against the walls to make room for other janitors who were setting out row after row of plastic chairs, while yet more janitors struggled to assemble the choir risers borrowed from the music room for the graduation. The risers went in front of the raised stage at the far end of the cafeteria, where the 5th grade teachers reviewed class rosters against the stack of photocopied certificates on two tables covered with white plastic tablecloths. The parents and guardians have started filing in through the double doors from the front hallway. The principal wheeled an upright piano from storage and sat it opposite his podium on the other side of the tables. Teachers from other grades—their own classes having let out for summer vacation the day before—worked as ushers for the event, handing out programs and helping people to their seats.

The combined 5th grade class stood in the loading zone just outside the cafeteria. A few teachers dotted the perimeter of an otherwise swaying sea of red caps and gowns. The caps had black center buttons from which hung black tassels. The teachers told them to keep the tassel hanging on the right side of their cap until told otherwise. The children joked and jostled and swayed like a field of poppies sprung from asphalt. The loading doors opened, and one of the 5th grade teachers stuck his head out. He waved over the nearest teacher and told her to get the students to line up. Music spilt from the open doors: the piano, badly damaged by humidity, warbled out The Star Spangled Banner and Nearer My God To Thee—a song not strictly adhering to the separation of church and state, but one of only four songs the school secretary knew.

While the class was being rustled and corralled, Stephen Wolfe slipped away from his classmates, shedding his cap and gown as he ran around to the front of the school. He ran through the front entrance, passed the double doors where he can mutely hear Pomp and Circumstance. The usher-teachers were gathering their belongings from the front office opposite. His feet took him down well-trodden paths, yet he stumbled down the hall unknowingly. He’d peek inside classrooms that used to be his, seeing only lifeless shadow. He tried his refuge, but the library was locked on all 4 sides.

He found an open door and stole inside: It was the janitor’s closet where they kept the supplies for Ms. Edward’s school store: Loose-leaf paper and notebooks, mechanical pencils and standard yellow #2s, Trapper Keepers and tri-color pens for the big spender. The door opened, and Stephen turned to face the back shelf.

"There you are!"

Ms. Edwards turned on the light.

"What are you doing in here?"

Stephen wiped his eyes with his open palms, sniffled, and wiped his nose with his dress shirt sleeve. He held up a hand and pointed at the stationary. Through choking sobs, he managed to get out that they were running low on pencil-topped erasers and stick glue.

"You were a real good helper—I could always count on you, and you left the coins sorted right in the cash box. But don’t worry about the school store—I’ll keep it going even when you’re at Adler Middle."

Stephen turned around, his red and swollen eyes looking at the ground. Ms. Edwards held out his discarded cap and gown. He slipped the gown on, but couldn’t get the cap on right. Ms. Edwards helped set it proper, then sat the tassel to his right.

"You know, you should be excited to see what’s next. You got a bright future ahead of you."

Wide-eyed and despairing, he pled his case: He likes it here; he doesn’t know the new school, or the new teachers; his friends are going to Flint Forest and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

She looked at Stephen, who with a scrunched face was struggling to fight back more tears. "Oh honey." She squeezed his shoulder and led him down the hall to the cafeteria. She knelt in front of him and wiped away his remaining tears. "None of us know what's gonna happen. That's what makes life life."

She stood and opened the door and, before ushering him inside, looked at him again and smiled.

“Plus, you can’t work in the school store forever.”

He made it to the stage just as his name was being called—the benefit of a late last name—and he got his certificate. He held it in front of him and smiled big for his photo-snapping uncle while his aunt cried that they grow up so fast. He joined his fellow students on the risers. At the teacher’s command, they moved their tassels from the right to the left and then sang Hail to Thee My Alma Mater, tiny voices growing stronger amidst out-of-tune accompaniment.

Milton Charles was as much a Fair Play fixture as Doc Fellows, with Doc Fellows first opening his doors shortly before Milton showed up out of nowhere. Ms. Culpepper remembered the scrawny bag-of-bones on the doorstep of her boardinghouse. He couldn’t have been more than 18, but he had much older eyes: eyes always on the move, making notes of the entrances and exits of whatever room he happened to find himself in. He was pouring sweat, constantly using his sleeves to wipe his forehead. He was wearing a gray flannel suit and left his jet-black hair uncovered.

He asked if she had any vacancies then asked how much was room and board, putting an emphasis on the “and board” part. She gave him the rate. He pulled out a wad of cash, peeled off a few bills and handed it over to the widow. He told her that should cover the first and last month’s rent, with no idea that timid Ms. Culpepper rarely felt comfortable asking for the rent at all. He told her he valued his privacy and eating two meals a day. When the headlights from a passing car illuminated the living room, Milton bent down to tie his shoes and waited until the lights were gone before standing back up. He opened the front door, looked left and right, and, turning back towards Ms. Culpepper, told her he’d be back in the morning.

After that night, Milton Charles was only in the boarding house to take his two meals, pay his rent, or, on the rarest of occasions, to sleep.

Ms. Culpepper talked to her neighbors and her church friends about her scrawny new boarder with the extravagant way with money. People talked about two things: his seemingly never-ending source of money and just how much sweat he seemed to exude. He swapped the gray flannel suit for cotton, then seersucker, and finally a linen suit, but nothing helped. It seemed as if he couldn’t acclimate to the climate.

His last night at Ms. Culpepper’s was as abrupt as the first. He made a rare nighttime appearance, right as Ms. Culpepper was finishing her last cross-stitch. He was wearing a soldier’s uniform, and his face was covered in lipstick marks of different shades. He told her—all while rushing around the house, packing up his stuff—he’d enlisted in the Korean War, gave her a $100 bill, a kiss on the cheek, and told her she made the best cornbread in the world.

A few days later, deputies from a nearby county started asking the Fair Play townfolk if they’d seen someone matching Milton’s description. They told them what they knew, which wasn’t much—it seemed no one knew where he went. When they asked Ms. Culpepper if she remembered what branch of the military he joined, or if she could remember even the color of his uniform, she told them how sorry she was that she couldn’t remember and offered them another slice of fresh-from-the-skillet cornbread.

The war had been over a year when Ethan went to close his store and Milton reappeared. The town was split on if the man claiming to be Milton Charles was the same as the one who lived with Ms. Culpepper. The Milton who showed up was bald, dry and weighing at least three of the Milton’s they remembered. He returned to the boardinghouse to pick up some things he said must have fallen beneath the floorboards and Ms. Culpepper wondered if his eyes had always been hazel.

Milton made Ethan an offer for the shop: an offer he begrudgingly accepted. Milton wasted no time closing off the entrance to the pharmacy, converting it to an apartment, and turning the lunch counter into Fair Play’s first and only bar. He didn’t waste money either: the only things he did with the space was tear out the griddle, put up a rack to put the bottles on, and replaced the Pepsi dispensers with beer taps. He even left the name on the store front and sign—although he updated it from simple paint to a snazzy neon piece—a point that Ethan Fellows took offense to, seeing as it was his name now synonymous with debauchery.

Theo holds a machete over his head. The hot June sun glints off sparse bits of what bare metal remains—like twinkling stars in a rusted night sky. He stares at the underbrush separating him from the mysteries in the deep, dark heart of the jungle. He loses his grip on the cracked leather handle as he swings. The tall grass makes way for the flying blade, bowing with utmost civility before returning unshorn to its dance with the breeze. The machete wedges upright in the loam.

Lonnie hollers a “gimme that” and grabs the blade and pulls it from the earth. His first swing sends clinging clumps of clay through the air. He ignores Theo’s whining protestations—shouts about how it’s still his turn; how it’s his daddy’s machete. Lonnie gleefully cuts down the approaching undead horde of scrub and pine saplings, slicing through gnashing mouths that seek to devour his living human brain. Theo sulks over to where they dropped their stuff and starts rooting around the pile. He makes sure neither Lonnie nor Dylan are looking, then shoves a whole Hostess cupcake into his mouth. He stuffs the incriminating cellophane and white paper square into the pocket of his Lee Dungarees.

Lonnie finishes the last of the undead vegetation with a flourish, decapitating the last standing sapling with a whirlwind spin. He stops to catch his breath. The vacant lot vibrates with insects invisible and menacing. He looks around for Dylan but the scrub brush is too tall.

“Hey bossman,” shouts Lonnie, “where’m I cuttin’ to?” He wipes sweat and dirt and vegetative detritus from his brow and slings it off before cleaning himself proper with his t-shirt. The stinking miasma lands on an anthill, wreaking biological havoc on the unsuspecting fire ants.

“Toward the big oak yonder” come a cry from the bulrushes.

“And where exactly’s yonder?”

Dylan emerges from the reeds, red-faced and sweating. He walks over to Lonnie with purposeful steps. Normally they’d spend their Summer vacation running down winding trails through the woods, but this year Dylan convinced the gang to blaze bike trails in the vacant lot behind the Pentecostal church. While the chapel was being built, the construction crew got overzealous and cut a good half acre past the church’s property line. They stopped once the mistake was discovered, leaving behind half-secured stacks of downed trees still clinging to red violent life between twisted, gnarled roots and piles of red Georgia clay. The vacant lot laid bare and red like a wound on the earth left to scab over.

Dylan puts his sweaty, sunburned arm around Lonnie’s equally sweaty, sunburnt neck and points off towards an ominous-looking oak at the mouth of the woods.

“There’s yonder.”

Lonnie laughs and pushes Dylan away. Fat globules of sweat fall off Dylan’s lank hair and crash with cataclysmic results for the red ants below. Dylan walks down the trail they blazed earlier. Uneven stalks of grass stick out from the ground. Dylan takes what was once the swing from his backyard and puts it over the short grass. The plank is dry-rotted and gray—the woodgrain juts out in sharp relief. He puts his right foot on top of the board and takes up the ropes on either side and pulls them taut. He pushes down, forcing the sharp lip of the board into the earth. He drags the board along the path, digging up clumps of roots and dirt.

Dylan looks past the blaze and sees how the rainwater cut trenches into the piles of earth that snake and wind around downed trees—wind and erosion softened the red hills down to soft slopes of loam. He tried pointing this all out before but it was like they were looking at different things. Lonnie and Theo didn’t understand what Dylan was talking about, but he has the nice bike—with pegs on the front and back wheels—so they go along with it.

The omnipresent hum of mosquito wings vanishes and the cicadas grow silent. The air, hot and fragrant with honeysuckle, grows chill. Lonnie’s arms go goose-pimply as the skies open up and the onslaught begins—fat raindrops plummet from crystal clear cerulean skies, stinging the sunburned boys with each direct hit. They make a break for shelter on footpaths ancient and eternal that run like varicose veins through the forest. They huddle under the ominous oak. Theo takes out a bag from Cub Foods and passes around ham sandwiches with mustard and American cheese, and boiling-hot Capri Sun pouches. He opens a bag of Doritos and puts it between the three of them while they wait for the storm to pass.

Light splits darkness—a voice, bass and carking, ruptures the boy’s slumber. The boy fumbles with wool socks and worn boots and feels about in the dark for his coat. He drags streaking fingers along familiar textured walls before stepping back out in the dark, huddling with other shadows around the stop sign. Amber and azure waves cast prognostications of the coming morning with the stringy entrails of the dying night. Shadows queue single-file and shuffle along aisles of dulled white weatherstripping.

The boy thanks the driver and finds himself in echoing corridors pulsating with squeaking sneakers and peopled with weary-eyed wanderers. The entrance funnels into hallway tributaries that span the school, snaking like kudzu up the bark of a pawpaw tree. He shuts his eyes and lets his feet remember the steps. He drags his hand along the latex painted cinderblock wall. He sails down the stairwell, hand holding the center banister as he rotates and spins down in a corkscrew motion before landing at the bottom and pushing back into infinite stretches of hallway—Fast, slow, fast, fast, slow, sometimes wide turns, sometimes a quick one. He takes a left, a sharp left, and another left. He takes his seat as the bell rings, and he listens to the persistent and punctual seconds tick by.

The intercom buzzes and the boy gathers his things. All hallways lead to the library. Let him roam them. Let him wander but not lost. He stands in front of an entrance catty corner from his old kindergarten room. He enters the library and sits his books at the same chair at the same table in the same spot. He shirks off his coat and places it on the back of his chair. He listens to the languid, torpid ticking and takes a solemn moment to think about the work ahead.

He licks his finger and holds it to the sky. His eyes track the shelves that stretch to empyrean heights. He follows familiar footsteps along laminated flooring that contain untold patterns buried beneath waxy, nacreous swirls. He retraces his steps and reads the cryptic code along the spines. He resumes where he left off, traipsing down winding and weaving paths while leaving streaking fingerprints along the sylvan stacks. The boy walks along well-trodden shire, where the breeze smells of roast mutton, and the woods echo a merry laugh and a ring-a-dong-dillo. He enters the ficciones section—there he explores the viscous desert and the pavillion of limpid solitude in order to discover the garden of forking paths. He knows it’s his destiny to wander these gardens again and again and again. Above the entrance reads:

                                        It is a labyrinth devised by men—
                              a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men.

A poet flies down and lands atop the bust of Pallas Athena beside the garden’s entrance. “Bear in mind, this garden is enchanted,” this poet laments. The boy drags his hands along the hedgerow. A thorn pricks his finger—he bleeds a promise that stains the leaves. A woman with one blue eye and one eye green with silver flecks tells the boy the garden is her brother’s. She then points to three copies of Don Quixote—the original by Cervantes, the original by Menard, and a third protected by a Black Tarantula. The boy takes the tarantula and flees. He crawls down a 5 1/2 minute hallway. There he finds a tattered and torn Spanish Doll—he takes the doll but leaves the lemon meringue. The boy follows the languorous tattoo coming from the heart of the library. In its center chamber is a shelf with a single book. He opens it. Inside is nothing but babble. He concentrates and the book babbles on and the book babbles on until the library of babel reveals itself in the notes of a mellifluous babbling brook. He follows its song and comes upon a circular ruin. He follows the spiral staircase down into the earth, leaving behind plumes of breath. At the bottom he finds a well. He peers inside but sees nothing. The childlike Black Tarantula crawls up his neck to whisper the secret she herself learned from that poet atop the bust of Pallas Athena. The boy reaches into his chest and pulls out his heart the boy pulls out his own heart, holds it up naked so the world—for just one second—bursts into flame and in that second the boy sees the spring and he longs to taste the redolent waters so long promised by its siren song. The boy stretches to try to dip just a finger into the waters. A fingertip skates above the water as if touching the cold reality of a mirror. The thorn prick aches and throbs.

The boy startles when the bell rings. He gathers his belongings and runs along to geometry.