Why, you may ask, would we choose to do this?

There are many answers to this.  I will go with the easy one.  Maybe I’ll tackle the more subtle, psychological aspect of things at some future point.

The easy answer is: Susie inherited her father’s collections when he died several years ago.  He had been a collector of all things New York.  I mean all things.  We have pieces of subway rail, lateness reports for the IRT line for 1984, chunks of Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, an engraved invitation to the opening ceremonies of the Brooklyn Bridge, city planning maps from the early 1900s, and books like you wouldn’t believe — history books, novels, coffee table books, travel guides.  But the bulk of his collection, the centerpiece and crowning glory, was approximately five thousand photographic negatives, dating from the 1880s to the present.

We’ve actually got a lot more than that, but you get the idea.

Susie’s father, Hugh, died in October 2005.  He left his collection to Susie and her mother, jointly, but for reasons too complicated go into, Susie ended up with the collection.  Some time around August, 2006, she finally cleaned out his apartment and had all the stuff hauled to an office in Kent, CT, to an office space about 25 minutes from our house, and for the next three and a half years she worked part time from that office, selling post cards and transit maps and other small memorabilia on eBay and doing the occasional big photo print job for one or another of her father’s former clients.  Generally, she broken even, basically working enough to pay her overhead so she could continue to store the massive amount of stuff without draining our bank account.

Then, in February, 2009, I got let go from my job managing the help desk at Wachtell, Lipton.  I’d been working there for about thirteen years, first as a temp on the help desk, then as a programmer for about 10 years, and finally as the help desk manager.  I’d stopped enjoying the job quite a while ago, the commute from New Milford to New York being a large part of it and the fact that I was never an IT guy on purpose being the rest of it.  Somehow, in the mid-nineties, when the internet was just taking off and businesses were still struggling to deploy Windows and Word, I found I had a knack for computers and could make a decent living helping people use them.  It was fun; I wasn’t afraid of them.  It just wasn’t my bliss.

Well, lo and behold, thirteen years later, they kick me out, give me some severance, and I have a new opportunity to follow my bliss.  I just have no idea how to go about doing that.

I have an MFA in writing I got before I fell into IT.  I have two novels I wrote on the train during seven years of commuting.  I just have no idea how to turn those things into a viable career.

While I’m thinking about my next move, I’m still doing the standard things, punching up my resume and submitting to the job sites, making a web site, spamming my friends, and out of that I get a call about a programming consulting gig.  The people are really nice, project sounds interesting, so I write up a spec and we talk about it, and they hire me.

Somewhere in the back of my head Al Pacino is screaming, “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!”

How did this happen?  How do I keep getting good paying work at something I’d rather not do?  And why do I keep taking it?

Anyway, winter of 2009 rolls around, and I’m still doing the consulting project — mostly because I grossly underestimated the complexity of the project — it being my first spec as a consultant and my first programming in two years, I forgive myself.  But I’m not happy that it is taking me so long, nor is the client, although they’re too nice to complain.    Susie, meanwhile, is trying to ramp up her business to compensate for my ever-more-apparent failure to make a go of consulting.  She starts talking to me about retail space, about doing a web site.  She’s tired of Kent, the space isn’t big enough, it’s second floor, the landlord doesn’t want to negotiate on the rent, even though the building she’s in is losing tenants daily, in short, she’s out of there.

There’s space in New Milford, right on Route 202, lots of traffic, half way between home and school.  It’s ideal.

We take the lease.  We’re in business.

Of course, we still have to open our doors.  We still have to find the balance in working together.  We have different approaches to things.  She’s trying to achieve an aesthetic; I’m trying to achieve positive cash flow.  She’s patient and calm.  I am decidedly not.

But we do balance one another, and I am therefore quite hopeful of success.  She has taught me to believe in the Impulsive Essential.  Some things you don’t know you need until you see them, and then you know you can’t live without them.  Sometimes they’re small gift items.  Sometimes they’re something much bigger.

Often, they are the beginning of an adventure.

“No,” I said.  “I guess I was just walking fast.”

She kind of scrunched up her nose at this and said, “Well, come in the kitchen and have something to drink.  Athena is in the backyard barbecuing.”

I followed Mrs. Murphy down the hall, past the living room, and into the kitchen.  The kitchen was a marvel of cleanliness.  The counters and cabinets, the floor, and the refrigerator were all unblemished white.  The only colors in the room came from the pattern in the wallpaper and from the bottles of soda lined up on the kitchen table, which was, in fact, an unscarred duplicate of the one in my house.  Clear plastic cups stood stacked alongside the soda bottles.  Mrs. Murphy said, “Help yourself.  I’ll get you some ice.”  She opened one of the cabinets above the stove and took down a plastic ice-bucket and filled it with ice, while I poured myself some warm coke.

I watched Mrs. Murphy reach up for the ice-bucket.  She was wearing a green blouse and a pair of Calvin Klein jeans that hugged her buttocks and hips nicely.  Unlike Athena, Mrs. Murphy didn’t go for the baggy look.  Although I preferred Athena’s style, her mother’s mode of dress was not entirely without charm.  There is something to be said for flesh in definite quantities.  It was nice to be able to follow a curve into a shadow and lose it at the last possible moment.  Athena’s were less explicit curves, both hinted at and obscured b y the shifting folds of her garments.  But anything more explicit would have been too much for me.

Mrs. Murphy set the ice-bucket down on the table, next to the soda bottles, and again said, “Help yourself.”  I carefully eased an ice cube into my glass and began drinking my coke.  I could hear Athena in the backyard, but didn’t know how to escape Mrs. Murphy gracefully.  She was watching me sort of expectantly.  She startled me when she said, “Athena tells me you’re an avid reader.  Who’s your favorite author?”

My favorite author was J.R.R. Tolkien.  I’d gotten The Hobbit for a birthday present when I was eight and had been a Tolkien fanatic ever since.  But I didn’t think it sounded impressive enough, so I said, “Tolstoy,” of whose work I had read very little.

“Really?  I love Tolstoy.  What do you like better, War and Peace or Anna Karenina?”

Somehow, I felt I was being tested.  I was going to say War and Peace because I had read it and had not read Anna Karenina, but I figured I was, after all, not even sixteen years old yet and she couldn’t expect me to have read everything, so I told her I hadn’t read Anna Karenina yet.

“No?”  She shook her head.  “You really must.  Ever since Athena was thirteen, her father and I have assigned her a book a week to read in addition to her regular schoolwork.  The public school system neglects so many great books.”

I didn’t really know what kind of response she expected — my intellectual development was rather unguided and random — but luckily the doorbell rang before I began to stammer something nonsensical.  She went to answer it, and I poured myself another glass of coke, uncertain if I should wait for her to return or go out into the backyard.  The kitchen windows were fogged, so I couldn’t make out who was outside, although I thought I heard Athena loudly ask, “Who wants a hamburger and who’d rather have a weeny?”

Mrs. Murphy returned followed by a thin, unsmiling woman in a black dress.  “Ben, this is Jean Schultz.  Jean, this is Athena’s friend, Ben Green.”  I smiled at Jean Schultz, and she nodded at me coldly.  Mrs. Murphy continued, “Athena has made it clear that I’m not welcome at this shindig, so Jean and I are going out for the evening.  Ben would you do me a favor?  Go outside and tell Athena that I’m leaving.”

“Sure,” I said enthusiastically, opening the back door.

“Thanks, Ben.  I enjoyed talking with you,” Mrs. Murphy said.  “Have a good time tonight.”

There were about fifteen people in the backyard when I went outside.  Athena was standing alone at the barbecue, turning over enormous hamburgers with a spatula.  I went over to her and said, “Hi.”

“Ben!  I’m so glad you came.”  She turned from the barbecue and flung her arms around me, pressing her breasts against me and the butt-end of the spatula into my back.  My heartbeat soared as blood surged into my face and my penis simultaneously.  I hugged her back awkwardly, wanting to squeeze her tightly against me and enfold her in my flesh, to crush our bodies together until they merged, but instead I pressed my palms lightly against her spine as if she were porcelain, while every muscle in my body clenched with restraint.  “I was starting to think you’d bagged us,” she went on.  We separated, and she said, “I’m glad you didn’t.  How do you like you hamburger?”

“Medium.  But your mother asked me to tell you she’s leaving.”

“Oh.  OK.  I better go inside and say goodbye.”  She handed me the spatula and said, “Take over for a me for a minute.”

Her fingers brushed against mine as she handed me the spatula, and a chill ran through me.  I watched her run toward the house, copper hair bouncing against her back, black satin shorts caressing her derriere, pale legs gleaming in the yellow porch-light, and I shivered at the thought that I was really there and that she really wanted me there.  Despite the smoke from the barbecue I could still smell her.  I had been too overwhelmed by the suddenness of her embrace to breathe her in, but her scent — sharper tonight, like cinnamon – clung to me.  When the door closed behind her as she entered the kitchen, I still felt connected to her and prayed agnostically she would return before the feeling faded.

I hadn’t yet noticed any of the other guests; for those few seconds, the world had consisted only of Athena and myself, as if we were obscured in an impenetrable mist.  But in her absence the mist faded, and I realized there were other people in the yard.  Most were people I recognized from school, but I didn’t see anyone whom I considered a friend.  Phil Weissman, who was in my trigonometry class the previous year, was standing at the wooden barbecue table talking to two girls who looked familiar, but whose names I didn’t know.  I felt strong antipathy for Phil.  I didn’t hate him — because he had never done anything to me personally to cause me to hate him — but he was a type of which I disapproved on principle.  He didn’t have a job as far as I knew, yet he drove a 1983 Iroc and always had money on him.  He was also a self-proclaimed ladies’ man.  He sat next tome in trig and often described his exploits.  “You know Mina Walsh.  She blew me last night.  A mouth like wet velvet.”  I never quite knew whether to believe these accounts, but he was  a good-looking guy, built out of marble, so I thought they could just possibly be true, and in so thinking came a hair closer to actually hating him.  The fact that he took trig as a senior while I took it as a sophomore further enabled  me to justify my disdain.

Phil, of all people, approached me as I turned the hamburgers.  “Benny Green, how the hell are ya?”  He clapped me on the back as if I were a good buddy whom hadn’t seen in years.

I turned to the grill and checked the burgers.  “Fine, Phil.  How about you?  You want a burger?”

“Yeah.  Any of them look well-done?  I’m good.  I’m good.  Finally out of that damn school.  On to bigger and better things.  Going to Albany.  I’m leaving Sunday.  Boy, it’ll be nice to see some new faces this year instead of those same butt-ugly teachers, huh?  I bet you can’t wait to get your wings.  What have you got, one or two years left?”

“You want your bun toasted or not toasted?”

“Toasted.  Toasted.  I like warm buns.  So what have you got, one year left?”

I took a bun out of the package sitting atop the small table next to the grill and put it on the barbecue.  “No,” I said, “I’m a junior this year.”

“You’re only a junior.  I though you were a senior.  Boy, you must be good at math.  How’d you do on that trig final by the way?”

I’d gotten a hundred on the final, but I knew that wouldn’t be cool.  Phil would go on and on about how he could never get a hundred in trig and wouldn’t want to, people think  you’re a geek if you get a hundred in something as boring as trig, and they’re probably right, you probably are a geek, but that’s OK, the world needs geeks, and you’re cool anyway, even though you probably spend too much time studying to even think about getting laid.  So I just said, “I got a ninety-four.”

“Mazzini figured you must have gotten a hundred because it wasn’t him and you were the two best at trig.  Maybe Semmel did something weird with the curve.”

I grabbed a plate off the table and handed it to Phil.  “You like you bun hot or just warm?” I asked.

“Buns only need to be warm.  Once you slip the meat between them, everything heats up.”  He laughed.  “Yo, that was good.  C’mon, man, that was good.”

I gave him my biggest boy-I-wish-I-could-be-you grin.  “That was good, Phil.  But seriously, is this good enough for you?”  He nodded, and I dropped the bun on his plate and asked, “Which burger do you want?  These three look well-done.”

“Give me that big one,” he said.  “I’m pretty hungry.”

At that moment, the back door opened, and Athena stepped out, carrying a package of hot dogs and a six-pack of Budweiser.  Three or four guys rushed over to her and tried to take the beer.  “Wait a minute,” she said.  “There’s more in the house.  Just let me put these down.”  She put the beer on the barbecue table and brought the hot dogs over to the grill.  “Ben, how are things going?  Can you hang on for just  couple minutes more, while I bring a few more things outside.”

“Sure,” I said.  I was actually enjoying my role as chef; it gave me an excuse not to mingle.

Phil asked Athena, “Do you need a hand with anything?”

“Yes, Phil, thanks.  You can carry the cooler.”

“Anything you want,” he said, “as long as you’re willing to hold my meat.”

Athena snickered.  “Phil, that’s disgusting.  Leave your meat out here.  Ben will watch it for you.”

He put his plate down on the table and winked at me.  “Be right back.  Don’t let anyone touch my meat.”

My pulse quickened, and my skin turned clammy as they entered the house together.  I hoped Mrs. Murphy had not left yet.  I wondered how I could poison Phil’s burger.  I wondered why he was even here; he didn’t seem like the type of person Athena would like.  He was vulgar, shallow, unintelligent — albeit handsome and rich — not at all Athena’s type.  Certainly she couldn’t have been attracted to him, and there didn’t seem to be much of a basis for friendship.

Debbie Rosen, a slightly chunky girl with blond hair cut Dutch-boy fashion and faux tortoise-shell glasses, approached me.  She also worked at the library.  Usually, he and I didn’t work on the same days, but we knew each other from school.  She was a grade ahead of me, but we had a few classes together.  “Hi, Benny,” she said.  “Athena put you in charge of the grill, huh?”

“Just till she comes back,” I said.  “Do you wants something?  A couple of the hamburgers look ready.”

“No.  I ate already.  Maybe some of the guys want them.”

“Well, I’m going to take them off before they get burned.  Hand me one of those plates over there.”

She got me a plastic plate from the table, and I piled the burgers onto it, my hand shaking slightly as I lifted each one with the spatula.  Debbie didn’t seem to notice, but I didn’t care either way.  My mind was burdened with a thousand horrors; each second that Athena and Phil remained together in the house fueled my imagination.  How long could it take to get a cooler?  They must  be fooling around.  I pictured Phil’s hands groping Athena’s breasts, her hand on his crotch.  It wasn’t fair: a buffoon like him didn’t deserve her.

“Have you had any yet?” Debbie asked.

At first I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but then I realized that I hadn’t eaten.  My stomach had been doing so many flip-flops since I walked outside that I hadn’t even noticed I was hungry.  As a matter of fact, I was starved.  My gut felt like an abyss which nothing could fill.  I could almost hear my pounding heart echoing in its emptiness.  “No, I haven’t,” I told her.  I took a bun out of the package and put one of the hamburgers on it, while Debbie held the plate.  Something had to fill me.

I started to eat, and Debbie said, “I’ll go see whether anybody wants these.”

I watched the house as I ate.  It seemed forever since Athena and Phil went inside.  It could have been me but for my repulsive exterior.  The hamburger began to taste fetid in my mouth.  I exhaled heavily and felt my flesh sag limply around my frame.  Sometimes I felt protected by my rolls of fat, as if I were wearing dark sunglasses that prevented people from knowing where I was looking, as if my blubber disguised me, presented me to the world as just a harmless fat kid — no mind, no soul, just a body — but other times it felt less like protective insulation and more like a barrier, a cage through whose bars I could see but never touch the outside world.  But still I continued devouring the hamburger.

Debbie came back without the plate.  She looked at the remaining burgers and dogs sizzling on the grill.  “Those things have a few minutes.  Why don’t you come and sit with us?”  She indicated the three girls sitting at the barbecue table.  Two were seniors, Lauren D’Napoli and Sharon Katz, and the third was Lisa Weinstein, whom I had  a crush on in fifth grade.  Looking at Lisa now, I couldn’t understand why I had ever considered her beautiful.  She was flat-chested and short, and her hair was big frizz cottonball glued to her head.  She was not my type at all.

I said to Debbie, “Maybe I should go inside and see if Phil and Athena need any help.  They’ve been gone awhile.”

Debbie nonchalantly ripped my heart out and trod it underfoot.  “They’re probably just fooling around.  She’s had a crush on him for a long time, and he just broke up with Michelle Brooks.”

My tongue crumbled to dust.  Suddenly there was no air.  I couldn’t breathe.  It was like two giant hands squeezed the air out of my lungs and held me that way, compressed, unable to refill.  The hands suddenly released, and I gasped for breath around a large bit of hamburger and choked on it.  I coughed, and part of the hamburger flew out of my mouth, landing on Debbie’s white shirt.  She jumped back and flicked it off disgustedly.  Her nostrils flared and the corners of her mouth turned down like she was smelling shit, but then she realized that I was still choking and said, “Benny, are you all right?”  She clapped me on the back a few times to clear my wind pipe, but I was still gagging.  I retched once or twice and nearly threw up.  Debbie grabbed my arm and led me toward the house, saying, “We better get you some water.”

I had stopped choking by the time we reached the kitchen door, but my head was reeling from lack of oxygen.  Nevertheless, I paused at the door, not sure I wanted to go in and see Athena and Phil doing whatever they were doing.  But I also wanted to see, to know for certain, and moreover, by my presence, to stop them.  Debbie left me no choice; she opened the door.

Phil was leaning against the kitchen table swigging a Bud from the can.  Athena wasn’t even in the room.  I could see the telephone cord stretching into the hallway.  Athena said, “No, Daddy, I promise, the party won’t get out of hand.  Yes, I’ll tell Mother.  I love you, too, Daddy.  OK.  OK.  Bye, Daddy.”  She came back into the kitchen and hung up the phone.  She put a hand on Phil’s shoulder and said, “Sorry about that.  My mother told him about the party last time he called, and he had to call just to make sure everything was under control.”  I stood there mutely, while Debbie filled a plastic cup with water.  Athena noticed us and said, “Oh, hi.  What’s up?”

Debbie handed me the cup of water, and I sipped it.  “Benny choked on a piece of hamburger,” she said.  “We’re just getting him some water.”

“Oh, Ben, are you OK?”  She nudged Phil away from the table, and pulled out a chair he had been blocking.  “Here, sit down a minute.  Catch your breath.”  I collapsed ponderously onto the chair.  Athena ran a hand along the nape of my neck and patted me gently between the shoulder blades.  “Is anyone watching the grill?” she asked.

“No,” I said with exaggerated hoarseness.  I stood up.  “I better get back, there are a few things on it that might burn.”

Athena and Debbie both said, “Sit down,” and the gentle pressure of Athena’s had on my shoulder compelled me to resume my seat.  “Phil, would you watch the grill for a few minutes?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.  He grabbed his beer and went out into the backyard.

Debbie took my cup and refilled it.  “You OK now?”

I nodded.  “Thanks,” I said.  “It was scary for a minute?  I really couldn’t breathe.”

Athena asked us, “Do you know the Heimlich Maneuver?”  Debbie admitted that she didn’t, so Athena proceeded to give a lesson.  “Ben are you all right now?  Let me use you to show Debbie how it works.”  I stood up, and Athena got behind me.  She reached around me, barely — it seemed to me — able to get her arms around my girth.  She narrated her movements for Debbie’s sake, but I didn’t hear her.  I was imagining she had her arms wrapped around me for entirely different reasons.  My whole consciousness was focused on my skin.  My back tingled.  I imagined that, both our shirts and her bra notwithstanding, I could feel the two points of her nipples against my back.  Her thighs brushed against the backs of mine, and I could feel their firm cool smoothness through the denim of my jeans.  Her arms encircled me, and her voice hummed softly in my ear, and her breath was hot against my neck.  Suddenly her grasp changed and the smooth, supple arms that had rested against my rolls of flesh clenched, and the tightly balled fist, poised against my soft belly, plunged into my gut with unexpected force, and my breath once again fled.

I hadn’t prepared myself for Athena’s execution of the maneuver and was momentarily stunned when she pushed against my diaphragm.  It wasn’t as bad as the choking scene of a few minutes before because I was able to inhale right away and my trachea was unobstructed.  Athena, realized she had caught me off guard, said, “Ben, oh my God, are you all right?  I thought you were ready for it.  I’m so sorry.”

“I’m OK.  Really.  I was just exaggerating.”  I turned to Debbie.  “You want to try it now?  We can put a ping-pong ball in my mouth and see who can shoot it the farthest.”  Neither Debbie nor Athena laughed.  “OK.  Only kidding.  Let’s bring the rest of the stuff outside.”

Athena said, “The cooler’s in the garage.  Ben, come help me with that.  Debbie, would you mind bringing the rest of the soda outside?”

I followed Athena to the garage, heart beating fast once again, as I realized that I was for the first time along with her.  Was now the moment?  Would I ever have this opportunity again to tell her how I felt about her?  I didn’t think I would, but I nonetheless hesitated.  She was leaving, and whether I loved her secretly or openly, this night wa probably our last together.  Better to revel in this time, simply wallow in her proximity and familiarity, than to try to make it more and force her to reject me.  The garage was dark when she opened the door, and we stepped through, and before she turned on the light, I brushed against her, the back of my hand grazing her buttocks, sliding slightly the satin fabric of her shorts against her taut, cotton-covered gluteus.  O that I were a glove upon my hand, that I might touch that cheek.

I mumbled an apology.

Facing me, feeling the wall for the light-switch, she said, “It’s OK.”  Her breath was warm against my face and smelled of onion dip.  She was close enough to kiss.  I sucked my own tongue, tasting the onion dip on hers, caressed the inside of my mouth gently, and imagined it was Athena’s mouth that I was exploring.

The light came on, and she was still close enough to kiss, still facing me.  My tongue ceased its movement; my mouth was once again my own.  If I wanted to explore Athena’s mouth, there in front of me was its reality, lips moist and relaxed, ready to be parted by the gentle pressure of my invading lingual muscle.  I looked at her eyes, for a moment glimpsed my own moon face reflected off her enormous black pupils.  I watched her darkness-dilated pupils constrict, trapping my reflection behind her shining green irises.  And she stood there, unblinking, seeing I know not what in my own eyes.

“Wow,” I said, “that was cool, the way your pupils constrict in the light.”

“Yours are still pretty dilated.”

“All the better to see you with, my dear.”

“No, seriously Ben, are you all right?  My mother said you looked upset when you came in?”

“No,” I said, “I’m fine.”

“My mother said you looked like you’d been crying.”  She picked up my right hand, the one which was still vibrating with the tactile memory of her buttocks, and held it.  “You don’t have to tell me.  But I want you to know that I”m always there whenever you want to talk.”  She sounded so sincere that at first I couldn’t believe she was being earnest; the words themselves sounded like soap-opera dialogue.

She leaned in and kissed my cheek, and I didn’t care whether she was motivated by a flare for melodrama or genuine emotion.  I wanted to tell her everything about Harry and my mother, about moving to Commack, about my father being killed, and most of all about her, about my undying, ridiculous, overwhelming adoration and lust.  But I didn’t know where to begin, how to sort through the feelings and make a coherent narrative of them.  She wanted me to tell her what was on my mind, but my tongue could only handle one thing at a time, and there was too much to say.  If there were tears in my eyes when I said, “Maybe later,” she ignored them.

“OK,” she said, dropping my hand.  “The cooler’s on that shelf over there.  Can you reach it, or should I find something for you to stand on?”

I got it down, and we brought it into the kitchen and filled it with cans of beer.  Athena took at ten pound bag of ice out of the freezer, put it on the floor and pounded it a few times with a hammer to break it up.  Then she dumped the ice on top of the beer, and we brought the cooler outside.

The party had picked up a little during our absence.  There were a few more people, and a boom-box was blasting Heat of the Moment by Asia.  A few kids were dancing spastically on the grass back beyond the barbecue, girls outnumbering the guys at least two to one.  A clump of guys, Phil included, talking loudly over by the pool gate.  All of them held either a beer or some other drink.  The bottles of soda were lined up on the barbecue table, but along with them now were a bottle of Bacardi 151, a bottle of Smirnoff, and a bottle of Jack Daniels.  The same three girls were sitting at the table, each holding a drink.  Debbie was standing by the grill talking to Marty Silverstein, another Phil Weissman type who’d just graduated.  She waved to us as Athena and I put the cooler down next to the barbecue table.

Lisa Weinstein said, “Benny, are you OK?  We saw you choking before?”

I shook my head.  “I’m fine.  Piece of hamburger went down the wrong way.”

Athena asked, “Ben, you want a beer?”

I hadn’t had a beer since my father died.  He used to let me have a sip or two of his, but I never really liked it; I just wanted to drink what he was drinking.  “No,” I said, “what else do you recommend?”

Athena said, popping her own Budweiser, “I’d offer you a screwdriver, but I don’t think there’s enough orange juice left.”

Sharon Katz chimed in with, “Give him a rum and coke.”

“You want a rum and coke?” Athena asked.  I shrugged, so she made me the drink, using the Bacardi 151.  I didn’t know 151 was the proof.

The first sip warmed my throat pleasantly, but felt hot and burning in my stomach.  I could barely taste the coke, although the drink looked no different from an ordinary glass of soda.  The sweetness of the soda was overpowered by a slightly medicinal taste, bitter, pungent, a little like I imagined turpentine would taste after smoking a cigarette.  I felt the color rise in my cheeks, and took another sip to cool my burning throat.

Lauren D’Napoli smiled and said, “Mikey likes it.”

Athena almost snorted beer through her nose.  The rest of them guffawed.  Smiling, I took another sip, getting used to it, liking its warmth.

Athena said, “I’ll be right back,” and headed over to Phil and his group of guys.  I heard Phil say, “Hey, Babe,” as she approached, and I took another sip of my drink.

I was sort of stuck where I was.  As hostess, Athena could roam around at will, but I couldn’t follow her like a lost puppy.  I looked around the yard, as if I was casing the joint, weighing the merits of this party relative to the many others I’d been to.  I sipped steadily at my drink, listening to Lauren and Sharon’s conversation, waiting for an opening, something about which I could make an intelligent comment.  When they finally fell silent for longer then ten seconds, I said, “So, you guys are friends with Athena?”

Quick-witted Sharon said, “No, we hate her fucking guts.  That’s why she invited us to this party.”

I took another sip of my drink and searched the crowd for friendly faces.  I didn’t see any, so I guzzled the drink and made myself another.

Waves of people kept crowding around the make-shift bar, and I was gradually forced away from the Sharon-Lauren-Lisa clique.  The world was slowing down a bit.  Like a satellite searching for an orbit, I made my way back to the grill.  Debbie was still there, talking to Marty.  I smiled dumbly at them.  “Hi,” I said.

“How you doing, Benny?” Marty asked.  “Debbie says you had a choking fit before.  Be careful, buddy, there are better ways to die.”

“Are there any hamburgers left,” I asked.

“Sure,” Debbie said.  She put one on a bun and gave it to me.

“Me,” Marty went on, “if I knew I was gonna die, I’d want to do something first.  Make it meaningful, you know.  Like, if I found out I only had a week to live, I’d probably go to Russia and try to kill Andropov or some other Russian bigshot.”

“Oh, yeah?” Debbie challenged.  “How are you going to get al the papers you need to go to Russia in only a week?”

“OK, so maybe it’d have to be six months or something,” Marty conceded.  “But it’s the idea that counts.  I’m talking about making death meaningful.”

It was just my luck to be catching a buzz and be privy to a conversation where I thought I had something to offer.  “Death is always meaningless.  Only life can be meaningful, and you’re assuming your life is meaningless now,” I said.  Looking back, I figure Marty’s assumption that his life was meaningless was a pretty good one, but I was feeling argumentative.

Marty bristled.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you sound like the only way to make your life meaningful is to kill Andropov.  What if you  got hit by a car tonight and died?  Would your whole life have been meaningless?”

Debbie interceded, “No, Benny, I think Marty means he would do something important if he knew he was going to die.”

“Yeah.  Instead of just dying in bed, I’d want to do it with flare,” Marty argued.  “Maybe take someone evil with me.”

I took another sip of my drink.  My face felt warm.  I said, “Well, I’ve got news for you Marty.  You are going to die.”  I turned to Debbie and said, “So are you.  So am I.  We’re all terminal.”

My peripheral vision was narrowing, but I could still make out Athena and Phil approaching us from the pool gate.

Marty laughed.  “I don’t know about you Green, but I’m not dying right away.  I’m eighteen years old.  It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ve got a few years left.”  Marty turned to Phil, who had just joined our group.  “Green is worried about dying.”

“Well,” Phil responded, “if he’s gonna inhale his food instead of chewing it, he’s got something to worry about.”

Athena elbowed Phil in the side.  “Phil, that wasn’t nice.”

“Sorry, Ben,” he said, “I’m only kidding.”

I gulped down the rest of my drink.  “All I’m saying is, none of us know when we’re going to die.  You can’t say you’re going to die a meaningful death.  They’re all meaningless.”

Phil’s face clouded with anger, his voice thickened.  “My grandfather died during World War Two fighting the fucking Nazis.  You’re not going to tell me that was meaningless.  Cause if it wasn’t for him, you might not even be here fatso.”

“Phil,” Athena whispered, “you’re such an asshole.  Go change the tape or something.”

“No,” he said.  “This kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Bullshit.”

I smiled and sipped at my empty cup.  “Phil, let’s pretend you have a cranial capacity larger than a rat’s.”  I think I wanted him to hit me.  I didn’t know what button I had pushed, but it seemed to me that Phil was overreacting.  “Listen.  I said all deaths are meaningless.  That has nothing to do with how somebody lives.  Fighting for a cause is a meaningful thing.  But death doesn’t make you a hero, what you do while you’re alive does.  Would your grandfather have been less heroic if he had survived the battle and died of cancer?”

Marty, Debbie, and Athena all had semi-stunned looks on their faces.  Other people were starting to come around us now, drawn by the loud voices.  Phil glared at me.  I don’t think he heard anything after the word “rat.”  He stepped towards me and leaned in.  Athena stepped between us.  She held Phil back as he yelled, “Who the hell are you Green?  Pathetic, fat, little sixteen year old.  Who the hell are you to tell me about my grandfather?”

Who the hell was I?  I didn’t know.  Maybe if I was a little drunker I would have just said, “Benny Green, a fat, pathetic, sixteen year old, whose I.Q. is more than your body-weight.”  But I knew for certain that, with regard to this argument, my defining characteristics were more than my intellect and my obesity.  I shouted at Phil, “I’m the kid whose father was shot and killed meaninglessly by scumbuckets with guns.  He didn’t try to stop them.  He gave them the money, and they killed him anyway.  He died for no purpose.  He was forty-two years old, and he went to work that day without any idea that he was going to die.  There was nobody in the store to protect, so he couldn’t be a hero.  All he could do was get shot in the chest.”  He stared at me in silence and finally raised his middle finger with deliberate slowness.  I roared, “I’ll rip your fucking heart out,” and lunged for him.

Debbie and Marty held me back.  “Easy, Benny,” she said.  Athena had pulled Phil aside and was talking to him.  His face was red still, and he was staring at the ground.  Debbie held my arm.  “It’s OK,” she said.  “Phil was just being an asshole.”

Marty, putting a hand on my shoulder, said, “Yo, Benny, ease up.  Phil can kick your ass.”

“Drop it, Marty,” Debbie commanded.  “Come on, Benny, are you ready for another drink?”

I nodded and headed for the barbecue table, and Debbie followed.  A cacophony of voices swelled around me.  Who is that kid?  Is he crazy, starting with Phil?  Yeah, it’s true.  His father was killed like five or six years ago.  He used to live a couple of blocks from here.  My parents used to be friends with his parents.  Is he friends with anybody here?  Phil better watch out or he’ll sit on him.

I filled my cup about a third of the way with rum and added coke.  Debbie took a beer out of the cooler.  Again, the warmth of the rum and coke rushed through me, warmed my whole body the same way a chocolate shake cooled me and soothed me.  I said to Debbie, “Phil doesn’t get it.  I wasn’t saying his grandfather didn’t live heroically, I was saying that all deaths are the same.  You end up just dead, not there anymore.”

Debbie said, “Let’s not talk about it anymore.  Phil’s a schmuck.”

Athena and Phil were still talking in the middle of the yard.  The two of them were whispering to each other.  Athena’s brows knitted in anger.  Phil stood there, staring at his feet, every now and then looking up at Athena and saing something.  Now and again, I would catch Phil looking in my direction, glaring at me.  Athena had her back to me.

The music suddenly changed.  Someone had put in a Billy Joel tape.  A whole bunch of graduated seniors gathered in the middle of the yard, linked arms and started singing I’ve Loved These Days.  Swaying back and forth, they sang, “We dress our days in silken robes.  The money comes, the money goes…We know it’s all a passing phase.”  Athena and Phil stopped arguing and went to join the group.  Debbie and I and the few others who hadn’t just graduated congregated by the barbecue table.  I sipped steadily at my drink, watching them all sway, arm in arm.  Athena and Phil were both smiling now, their disagreement forgotten for the moment.  Athena saw us standing by the barbecue table and waved the rest of us over.  Nobody moved at first, but her waving became more urgent, and little by little we all went over and joined the swaying mass of bodies.

There were about twenty of us, arms linked, rocking from side to side.  Half of us didn’t know the words or were too drunk to sing on key.  The rocking ad our melancholy droning were completely asynchronous.  I felt awkward, for even though I was on the perimeter, every time the group leaned in my direction someone would press against my flabby sides.  For a moment the words became distinct, “And so we end (and then begin) — We’ll drink a toast to how it’s been.”  At this point we all raised our cups and drank.  I finished mine, and finally the song ended.

Some of us continued to sway for a few minutes and sing along to Miami 2017, but the group gradually melted away until it was only a few of us, and I drifted back to the barbecue table.  Lauren D’Napoli was there.  She said to me, “You’re lucky Athena likes you.  Phil would’ve kicked your ass.”

My tongue felt thick and the words sounded blurry when I said, “Why would he want to kick my ass?”

“You called him stupid.”

“Why should that make him angry?  I’m sure he knows he’s stupid by now.”

She walked off, leaving me by the barbecue table.  I went to make myself another drink, but there was no Bacardi left.  The bottle of Smirnoff was empty as well.  I poured the little that was left of the Jack Daniels into my cup, but the smell was so vile that I couldn’t drink any.  I looked around for familiar faces, but there weren’t many at this point.  Athena was standing by the pool gate talking to people I didn’t know.  I went over to the boom-box to see what tapes were available.  Billy Joel had ended and nobody had put on anything new.  As I was shuffling through the tapes, a guy ran up and screamed, “It’s Hard, It’s Hard.”  He picked up a few of the tapes that were scattered around and found It’s Hard by The Who and played it.

I put the tapes down and meandered in Athena’s direction.  Most of the dancing had stopped.  Marty and Debbie ahd found each other again and had moved toward the back of the yard to make out in the shadows.  I tried not to notice as Marty slid his hands down Debbie’s back and firmly clenched her rear.

Phil came running over to the pool gate with the empty bottle of Bacardi.  Athena opened the gate and most of the party moved onto the concrete deck.  I followed.  Two guys brought over the cooler.  I had gotten rid of the Jack Daniels, so I took a beer out of the cooler.

“All right,” Phil announced, “these are the rules.  You either play or you leave.  No spectators.  The game is strip spin-the-bottle.”  My mind flared with possibilities.  To kiss Athena under cover of a game.  Strip: to see her naked, but also, potentially, to remove my own clothes.  I took another pull on my beer and listened.  “It’s just like regular spin-the-bottle.  You spin the bottle, and if it point to someone of the opposite sex, you have to kiss the person it points to.  With tongues.  But, if it points to someone of the same sex, you’ve got to either kiss that person or take off an article of clothing.  Jewelry doesn’t count.”  I looked at Athena: she was wearing (not counting underwear) shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, no socks.  I myself was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, sneakers, with socks.  I was one up on her, tow if socks counted separately.  In theory, she would be down to bra and panties before I had to take off my shirt or pants.  Phil went on, “If the bottle points to the spinner, that person must remove an article of clothing and lick the area it covered.  Groans from the gallery.

“Phil, that’s gross,” Athena said.

He continued, “The person the bottle points to spins next.  Everybody in?”

I swigged more beer.  There was some arguing about the licking rule, and Phil finally agreed to drop it.  Athena said, “Phil, people shouldn’t have to leave if they don’t want to play.”

“We can’t let people stand around and watch,” he said.  “If you get to see someone take their clothes off, you have to be willing to take your own clothes off.”  He looked at me when he said this.  I felt as if it were a direct challenge.  Phil was probably the best built guy at the party.  He seemed anxious to take his clothes off.  I weighed two-hundred pounds and was only five-foot-eight.  It was unthinkable that I would willingly disrobe in public.  But the chance to see Athena, the chance to kiss Athena was worth almost any risk.  It was not as if my clothing masked my obesity.  No one would be shocked by the sight of white, pasty rolls of fat; repulsed maybe, but certainly not surprised.

Athena said, “Phil, no.  It’s my party.  Nobody has to leave and nobody has to play.”  Athena looked at me, searched my face.

I said, “Phil’s right, we can’t let people stand around and watch.  Anybody who doesn’t want to play shouldn’t be allowed in the pool area.”

Athena continued to stare at me.  “OK,” she said.  “That’s fair.”

A few people moved outside the pool area and congregated around the table.  Most of them were girls.  There were six boys and four girls left on the pool deck.  I saw about one hundred sixty degrees away from Athena.  I was afraid that I would stare continually if I saw directly opposite her, but I didn’t want to have to crane my neck either.

Athena picked up the bottle and said, “As hostess, I claim the right to spin first.”  She put the bottle in the center and spun it.  It clinked against the concrete.  My heart pounded as it spun; each time the bottle neck slipped past me I thought my heart would explode.  It approached me slowly on the third rotation, and I nearly screamed out with excitement, but it went past me and stopped on the guy next to me.  O, if I were only fatter.  She said, “Well, Mike, looks like you’re the first victim.  Meet me half way?”

“Sure,” he said.

Kneeling, they both leaned into the circle.  Athena’s breasts swung forward and rested heavily against her shirt.  I wanted to close my eyes.  My hear thumped, and my mouth dried, and my bowels nearly mutinied.  Lips parted, heads tilted, they brought their mouths together.  Endlessly, eternally, eyes closed, mouths open, they kissed, and I died again each second.  At last they parted, and Athena licked their mixed saliva from her lips.  She and Mike smiled at each other.  It could have been me: a four inch shifting of positions, (a twenty pound weight gain), a modicum less force in the spin, and it would have been me, my saliva and my tongue.  I would have tasted her, and I could have remembered her flavor forever.

Mike spun, and this time it did point to me.  He said, “Should I kiss him?”  Everyone laughed.  Mike pulled a sneaker off and threw it aside.

I picked up the bottle and gauged its weight, trying to determine exactly how much force I would have to use to get it to point to Athena.  I tried to look nonchalant as I spun.  It whizzed around the first time, then slowed, but passed Athena nonetheless.  It pointed directly opposite me, directly at Lauren D’Napoli.  She groaned audibly.  Athena shot her a dirty look.  I was at least as disappointed as she was, but I maintained my cool.  She asked, “Do I have to kiss him?  Couldn’t I just take my sneaker off?”  Big laugh.

I looked at Lauren.  She wasn’t Athena, but she was still fairly attractive.  She had smooth, olive skin and dark brown hair; her lips were thin, and her eyes were narrow, squinty.  Her face was sharply angled, large nose, high cheekbones, prominent jaw-line.  Her ample chest hung forward, and I could see right down her blouse as she leaned toward me.  I closed my eyes just before our lips met, and our tongues caressed one another, smooth and soft, her teeth sharp and slick, glossy, thick wetness and the taste of orange juice over a dusky, dusty-grey flavor of cigarettes, eyes open and hers deep, near black, blink and I blink.  They are not eyes I’ve dreamed of, and we both sit back.  She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and I lick the inside of mine secretly.

I had tasted.

Each time the bottle passed to a boy, I willed it away from Athena, and each time it passed to Athena I willed it to myself, and each time it passed to a girl I willed it to another girl, so that they would remove their clothing.  Yet despite the fierceness with which I exerted my will, the boys were removing their clothing faster.  Since there were more guys than girls, this was understandable, though nonetheless frustrating.  I had my sneakers and both socks off, and Athena and I had still not kissed.  All the girls had both shoes off; most of the guys were beyond that.  Phil had nothing but his shorts left, but he hadn’t kissed Athena either.  Finally, Athena got the bottle again, after kissing Terry O’Grady.

I stared at the bottle concentrating all the force of my will, directing it to stop on me alone.  She spun it, and I held my breath.  It went around exactly twice, stopping on Athena.  She had no choice but to remove an article of clothing, and she only had her shirt and shorts left.  She stood up, and I held my breath again, anticipating the removal of her shirt.  She slipped an arm into her shirt and, after some contortions, held her bra in her hand, without ever having exposed flesh.  She stepped into the center of the circle and dangled the bra in front of each of the boys.  “What am I offered for this fine article of lingerie?” she asked.  I would have given my soul.

Phil reached for his wallet, and everyone laughed, and Athena sat down to spin again.  I couldn’t watch the bottle.  Athena’s breasts were there, bare and unbound, beneath a thin piece of cotton fabric.  The points of her nipples were clearly visible.  I listened to the glass scraping the concrete as the bottle spun.  It stopped and there was a great, “Whoa-hoa.”  The bottle was pointing directly at me.

Athena said, “I’ll meet you half way.”  But I was too shocked to respond.  I was paralyzed.  She leaned into the circle, and her unrestrained breasts fell heavily against her shirt, clearly delineating their every contour, then her hair dropped in front of her shoulders, obscuring them.  I struggled against my numbness.  My lips felt dry and chapped.  I licked them with my cottony tongue.  Resting on her hands, Athena awaited my kiss, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, the same as I watched her kiss the others.  I leaned in, and just as I was about to kiss her I recognized the song that was playing in the background.  The Who sang, “Athena, all I ever want to do is please her.  My life has been so settled and she’s the reason.  Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone.”

I said, “They’re playing your song.”

She opened her eyes and said, “Ben, just kiss me.”

I did.  I kissed her.  She kissed me back.  I wanted to swallow her.  Or let her swallow me.  At first, the dryness of my lips and the numbing effect of the alcohol made the sensation uncertain.  But then the gentle probing of her tongue moistened the contact, allowing the electricity to flow.  Her tongue entered my mouth, gently, curiously seeking mine, coaxing it to life, lubricating it with her saliva, and urging it to its own exploration, her firm malleability pressing against my teeth, searching prodding looking, and her hot moist breath against my cheek.  It seemed an eternity that we explored each other, yet I had not taken a second breath before she began to playfully nibble my tongue and suck my lower lips, pulling out and away, parting, cool air, rushing over moistened mouths, and it was over.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

But it seemed all too brief.  The kiss ended, and it was my turn to spin, and I prayed I would get Athena once again.  I spun, and the bottle pointed to Phil.  My dream had become a nightmare.  I had to remove either my shirt or my pants.  Phil puckered his lips at me and made kissed sounds, indicating my one other choice.  At least I had kissed Athena before I would repulse her.  I looked at her; she didn’t meet my gaze.  I guzzled whatever was left in my beer can and stood up to take off my shirt, expose the white blubber to the pointed barbs.  I gripped the bottom of my shirt, and Athena suddenly said, “Don’t fall,” and pushed me backward into the pool.  I came up sputtering.  My shirt billowed out around me, and air bubbles wriggled out of my jeans, seeking the surface.

Athena yelled, “Take your shoes off before you go in,” then leapt into the pool.  She landed in front of me, and her splash washed into my open mouth.  She came up, wet T-shirt clinging to her, hiding nothing, but I looked into her eyes, trying to fathom what she had done.  Roger Daltrey was bellowing, “Athena, my heart felt like a shattered glass in an acid vat.”  Other people were tearing off their shoes and their shirts and thier shorts and jumping into the water around us.  A splash hit Athena in the face, and she blew water out of her mouth and laughed.

She threw her arms around me and squeezed me.  I squeezed her back, not like she would break, but like I meant it.

SkyJump from the SkyTower, Auckland, New Zealand, August 2008

It’s easiest to start your adventure in Auckland, on the North Island, since the majority of flights from the United States will land there. Here, the first stop should be the Sky Tower, which offers spectacular views of the entire city and, at 192 meters, is New Zealand’s tallest man-made structure. It’s a great way to get your bearings and get a taste of the Kiwi sense of adventure. Not only can you see the city and beyond, you can watch people base jump from the top of the tower and, if you are feeling froggy, you (and your kids over ten) can jump, too. If leaping from a tremendous height isn’t your thing, you can opt to take the SkyWalk, which entails circumnavigating the tower on a four-foot wide parapet with nothing but air on either side of you and a safety harness strapped on.

Ben at the Auckland Zoo, August 2008

If your kids are not quite so bold, the Auckland Zoo is a little tamer. It’s an easy cab or bus ride from the city. You can spend a good part of your day here, and you can see some southern hemisphere animals like the Kiwi Bird and the wallaby, often overlooked in American zoos. Oddly, there is an entire area dedicated to Australia’s fauna, but not to New Zealand’s.

Jeff Zorbing in Rotorua

Zorbing is a uniquely Kiwi sport that is fun for the whole family. Nothing says New Zealand like partly filling a gigantic rubber ball with water, climbing inside, and rolling it down hill. This sport was invented in Rotorua, but franchises are popping up elsewhere in the world. There are multi-person, multi-ride discounts, and anyone over six years old and under 130 kg can ride the Zydro (the wet version). Zorbit is the dry version, but since you remain in a fixed position relative to the ball, only the hardiest of souls will want to try.

Hell's Gate, Roturua, New Zealand, August 2008

If Zorbing didn’t nauseate you, but you still crave queasiness, head over to Hell’s Gate, also in Rotorua. This geothermal reserve and spa looks like Hell and smells as bad. Here you can wander among the thermal springs and bubbling mud pools, and if the smell doesn’t drive you away, you can take a bath in the stuff, either in a private bath with your family or in the larger public bath. The mud-baths themselves are warm, relaxing, and purportedly good for your skin, but your bathing suits are going to smell like sulphur long after you return home.

A little over 2 hours from Rotorua is Waitomo, which boasts some more Kiwi-style adventure opportunities. A guided tour of New Zealand’s most famous cave, culminating in a boat ride on an underground lake where glow worms provide the only illumination, is something the whole family can enjoy. And for those twelve years and older who still haven’t got enough of New Zealand’s extreme sports, abseiling and cave tubing adventures are available.

Crossing from Wellington to Picton, Jeff and Ben enjoy the scenery and some wine.

If after all that, your family still craves more Kiwi adventure, there’s still the South Island. You can cross from Wellington to Picton on a three-hour ferry ride that should count as an adventure in itself. Onboard there is a movie theatre, a video game room, and a play area for younger kids, as well as a food court and a convenience store, where you can pick up magazines or some dramamine if the weather is rough. If the weather is favorable, you can go out on deck and see one of the most dramatic coastlines in the world, where lush green mountains rise up out of the sea on either side of you as you cruise through Marlborough Sounds, Tory Channel, Queen Charlotte Sound, and then into Picton harbor.

Sarah, Alex, and Ben inside a tunnel at the Franz Josef Glacier

There’s a lot to see on the South Island, but the next stop in the top ten itinerary is the Franz Josef Glacier, a little less than halfway down the west coast. Depending on the ages of your kids, the stamina of the adults, and how much you want to spend, you can choose to do a half-day experience, an all day adventure, ice climbing, or heli-hiking. The half-day experience is four to five hours and will likely be perfect for the average family. It entails a trip by bus to the glacier valley, a hike through the valley to the base of the glacier, and then a guided climb through the precut trails and tunnels through blue ice. The glacier is a temperate glacier, and even in the winter months, the guides are likely to be wearing shorts and short-sleeves, although they will provide you with cold weather gear.

The falling tower at Puzzling World, Wanaka, New Zealand

About three and half hours south of Franz Josef, in the town of Wanaka is Puzzling World, a family attraction consisting of a 1.5 km labyrinth, hologram exhibits, and a host of optical illusions. Compared to the natural beauty of the glacier and ferry crossing and the physical challenges of some of the other attractions on the itinerary, this may seem somewhat tame, but the maze maybe some of the most fun your family may have on the trip. The challenge is to find your way to four colored towers and then to the exit, which can give each family member a chance to lead the group. Inside, everyone will get a kick out of the illusions, including the chair that seems to slide uphill and the room where you seem gigantic at one end and tiny at the other.

Alex Bungy Jumping in Queenstown, New Zealand, August 2008

Queenstown is only a little more than an hour south of Wanaka, and it will serve as base camp for the final three items on the top ten itinerary. First on the list is bungy jumping, which was invented in its current form by AJ Hackett in the mid 1980s. Although Queenstown has a number of bungy venues, the Kawarau Bridge is where AJ and his partner, Henry van Asch got their start. The 43 meter jump is open to anyone over ten years old, who weighs between 77 and 500 lbs, and who has enough steel in his spine to laugh in the face of death. Jumpers get weighed first, and an appropriate bungy cord will be attached to their ankles. So precise are the adjustments to the cords that jumpers have the option of dunking their hair, their whole head, or not getting wet at all. When it is your turn to jump, your family can wait on the viewing platform opposite the bridge, while you walk to your doom alone. The wait is the worst part because once you step onto the platform the whole thing is over in seconds. Fortunately, in the offseason, the crowds are minimal, so you’ll only have a few minutes rather than hours to fret.

The Ford of Bruinen, Lord of the Rings Tour, Queenstown, NZ 2008

Seemingly less daunting than jumping from a bridge is a Queenstown Lord of the Rings Tour. A number of tour operators run a variety of tours, from half day to all day, by land, sea, and air. We opted for a half-day landrover tour, which was more than enough excitement for the family. Our tour guide was knowledgeable about the movie locations and the entire region, and she made the trip a blast, driving us repeatedly through the river at the site of the Ford of Bruinen. She then drove us to the top of a mountain and explained how Peter Jackson was able to film the vast wildernesses of Middle Earth by selecting his shots carefully to exclude view of roads and towns. The spectacular views alone made the tour worthwhile.

Doubtful Sound, New Zealand, August 2008

The final stop on the top ten itinerary is a cruise through Doubtful Sound. This is an all day affair, starting at about 7:00 AM, when you board a coach bus for Manapouri. On reaching Manapouri, you board a small boat which will take you across a portion of Lake Manapouri to Wilmot Pass, where you will board yet another coach, which will take you through the rainforest of Fjiordland National Park to Deep Cove. As you go deeper into the park, you realize that this is one of the remotest and most pristine locations on earth. You then board a large catamaran for a three hour cruise through Doubtful Sound, where mountains rise up out of the sea and seals and penguins bask on rocks and no other boats can be seen or heard. About an hour out, the captain will shut the engine and ask everyone on board to be silent for several minutes. You may never hear another silence like that again, with the only sounds being the lap of the water against the hulls, the wind whistling through the trees, and the birds crying out. Unless you try Antarctica, this is likely to be the furthest you will ever be from human habitation, and in my opinion, giving your kids that experience, letting them catch a glimpse of our place in the universe, well that alone is worth the trip.

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Thank you, Priscilla, and thank you Ladies and Gentlemen of the Rotary Club for inviting me here to speak to you today.  As Priscilla mentioned I have a Bachelor’s in English and an MFA in Fiction Writing both from Columbia University. So I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I have made my living for the past fifteen years predominantly through computer programming. Right now, I’m doing a web/database project for the Education Connection. I am cursed with the ability to do reasonably well something which puts more than enough food on the table — my figure certainly belies the notion of the starving artist — but which does precious little to nourish my soul. Don’t take that as a complaint, just a partial explanation of the rather circuitous route I’ve taken to get from writing student to published author.

I discovered I wanted to be a writer in ninth grade, when I was thirteen years old. I had done poorly on a vocabulary quiz, and the teacher assigned those of us who got below a certain grade to write an essay making use of all the words we had gotten wrong. I turned the essay into a short story. It was about a kidnapping and, in addition to the requisite vocabulary words, was replete with violence and melodrama. The next day in English class, the teacher, Miss Grande, asked me to read my essay aloud. I protested that it was a little long, but she wasn’t having any of it. This was, after all, an assignment given only to those who had done poorly on the quiz, and being that it was very early in the year, I’m sure she figured I was a slacker, who hadn’t done the assignment. So I read the “essay,” and by the end of the first paragraph I had them hooked. My entire ninth grade English class sat in rapt attention, hanging on my every word, and by the time I finished I was hooked. I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

I got a typewriter for my birthday that year, an electric Smith-Corona, and throughout my high school career I continued to write short stories and even took a stab at a novel — or rather the beginning of a novel. But I never knew what to do with these pieces aside from sharing them with friends.

In college, I continued to write, but never considered what it actually meant to become a writer — someone who earned a living from the the words flowing out from his fingertips. It was only later, when job interviewers asked me how fast I could type, that I appreciated the value of a BA in English. Three and a half years at Columbia (I graduated early) had taught me, not writing, but typing.

So, Ivy League educated and clueless, I went to work for my father and spent the worst six months of both our lives in his house and his pillow factory being miserable and making him and my step-mother equally miserable. My friends, seemingly more clued in to this real-world-making-a-living thing, got jobs on Wall Street. Those who didn’t stayed in school, mostly law school. I think the LA Law TV series had a lot to do with that. My father, in fact, kept pushing me to go to law school – I assume he would have preferred one out of state. But I was too disillusioned to go back to school right away — and besides, I’d missed all the application deadlines — so I compromised and got a job as a paralegal, ostensibly to find out what being a lawyer entailed.

Six months into a two year stint as a paralegal I realized that the law was not my calling. In the meantime, I continued to write, still doing nothing with the finished products other than showing them to friends and roommates.

Ultimately, I decided to return to school, not seeing it necessarily as a means to a career, but simply a way to spend the bulk of my time doing what I liked to do. Also, I knew the MFA programs required a collection of short stories or a novel as a Master’s Thesis, and I figured this would be a good way to force myself to write a novel. So I went to school, and I wrote a novel, and I graduated…but no agent ever called. An editor from Harper Collins did not knock on my door. In fact, I now had a novel and no more clue about how to earn a living as a writer than I did before I went into the program. This was the School of the Arts; apparently, at this time at least, they were concerned with the production of art, not the business of art.

Let me also say that while I was getting the MFA, I was teaching Logic and Rhetoric at Columbia and word processing at nights at Goldman Sachs, and along the way I managed to get married. So, when my wife’s first pregnancy coincided with my graduation, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about selling a novel. I needed now, suddenly, to earn a real living.

Once again, it seems that typing — or rather the late Twentieth Century version of typing, word processing — was my most valuable skill. Working nights and eventually graveyard shifts at Goldman, I became an expert in Microsoft Word. In turn, I parlayed that expertise, combined with my teaching experience, into Word training gigs. I got certified in Word and Windows NT, did some tech writing and training, and eventually a freelance help desk gig at a law firm turned into a thirteen year career. I went from help desk analyst to programmer and ultimately to help desk manager.

During this time, my family continued to grow. Unfortunately, our apartment failed to grow along with it. By 1999, there were five of us in a two bedroom on the Upper West Side. Needless to say, I didn’t do a lot of writing. In fact, for seven years after graduating the MFA program, I didn’t write a word. And I didn’t miss it. My kids took all my creative energy outside of work. Apparently I am cut from a different cloth than Vladimir Nabokov, who is reputed to have locked himself in the bathroom of his Paris apartment to write.

But at the end of 2001, we moved to New Milford, and I suddenly found myself with a great deal of personal time on the train each day. I once again had time to write. People thought I was crazy to spend so many hours each day commuting, but the truth was, I liked the commute better than the job.

In the course of seven years commuting, with an average of three hours per day on the train, I managed to write two and a half novels. The first novel, Bliss, was like my short story of twenty years before, replete with violence and melodrama. It also had profanity and graphically depicted sexual situations. It was a heck of a lot of fun to write. When I finished it, I wanted to sell it. I hated my job at this point and was motivated at last to learn how to sell a book.

Of course, once again, I had no clue. I read books and websites about the process and learned about the format for the manuscript and the all important query letter. So I wrote a query and started sending it out to agents. And I got form letter rejections back. In my opinion, this failure was more a reflection of the bad query letter than the novel itself.

While I continued that process of sending letters and receiving rejections, I began a new novel. This time, however, I wanted to write a different kind of book. I determined that, in contrast to the one I had just finished, my new novel would be something my then eleven-year old daughter, Sarah, could read. In fact, I was more ambitious than that, I was determined to hit the Harry Potter sweet spot, and produce a book that would be targeted at young adults, but which grown-ups would enjoy as well.

Sarah and I had just seen Wicked, the Broadway Musical, when I began to think about this project, and I was very much inspired by the musical and by Gregory Maguire’s novel. In addition to Wicked, Maguire had written a few novels that re-imagined traditional fairy tales, and I thought that I might like to try my hand at that. As I began planning the book, I also drew inspiration from Star Wars – Episode III had just come out – and from Thomas Berger’s novel Little Big Man.

Star Wars gave me the idea of the broad arc, of a character’s rise and fall and ultimate redemption. And from Little Big Man I got the idea of having a very old narrator, who would be looking back on a vast historical period and whose life would have been affected to some degree by historical events. Also, I wanted the story to be distinctly American. I wanted to see what would happen if you took a traditional fairy tale and transplanted the action from a Bavarian forest into an American City, specifically New York.

I planned three books, with each book making use of three fairy tales as its underlying structure. Millers’ Tales is the first of the three. It starts off in the early Twentieth Century, about 1907, where we meet Helen and George Miller in the roles of Hansel and Gretel, who live in a tenement on the Lower East Side and who end up imprisoned in a candy shop/freak show in Coney Island. The second section of the book, called Mr. Big, has Helen taking on the role of the miller’s daughter in Rumpelstiltskin. The action there is set toward the end of World War I, during the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. The third section, called Club Calabash, set at the end of Roaring Twenties, on the cusp of the Great Depression, refocuses on George, who assumes the role of the miller’s son from the Puss ‘N Boots tale, with Bernard the Wolf Boy, whom Helen and George met at the freak show twenty years earlier, assuming the role of Puss.

The challenge here was to weave these three tales together in an organic way, using the fairy tales as the bones of the beast if you will. George and Helen’s abandonment by their parents in the Hansel and Gretel tale, their imprisonment by the sadistic old fortuneteller, Nanna, and the murder they have to commit to escape doesn’t go away at the end of the first tale. These things become part of who they are and deeply inform their thoughts and actions throughout the rest of the stories. The same is true of the events in each of the stories – they change the characters, make them slightly different people.

So, although the novel is somewhat episodic in nature, there is a larger arc to the story and to their lives, which will, in the course of all three novels, span the entire Twentieth Century.

Now, returning to my original stated intention of writing a book that would hit the Harry Potter sweet spot and be for children, but also entertaining to adults – I failed miserably. Millers’ Tales is an adult novel. Not to say it is an adult novel in the same sense that “Debbie Does Dallas” is an adult movie. It is, in fact, devoid of profanity and explicit sexual situations. But it deals with mature themes, often dark themes. Fairy tales are dark in general, and in my hands, they become somewhat darker.

That said, it’s not really any darker than Harry Potter, and the teens and pre-teens who’ve read it seemed to enjoy it. It’s hard to take the word of my own children – they lie to me – but I’ve heard from parents whose children read it that they liked it.

So, having completed this novel, and begun work on the second in the series, I once again began to query agents. This time, I took a course online and I actually paid a third party to write a professional synopsis for me. The course paid off. I got no form letter rejections. Better than 50% of the agents I queried asked to see pages, and several of them asked for the entire manuscript.

One agent read the manuscript in a weekend and then left me an effusive voicemail telling me how much she loved the book. Then she broke her leg and disappeared for several months. When she contacted me again, she had revisions. We spoke at length about the changes she wanted, and I agreed that they would make the book better. I did the rewrites and sent her the revised manuscript. Several weeks later, she sent me an email, telling me how much better the book was, but that she was going to pass on representing it because she doesn’t handle fantasy.

Now I knew why they didn’t teach the selling of fiction at Columbia. Writing it is comparatively easy. Selling it is difficult and frustrating.

Shortly after this experience, my mother, who was dying of lung cancer, declined, and I went to Florida take care of her for about six weeks. Then shortly after my return, I was promoted at work and found myself with very little personal time. I started writing emails and memos instead of fiction. Selling Millers’ Tales and writing the sequel dropped off my radar.

Fortunately, my firm let me go in February, giving me the opportunity to once again focus on writing.

This time, however, I opted to forego the tedious and time consuming query process. Instead, I opted to publish the book myself, using Amazon’s CreateSpace service. Thanks to modern print on demand technology, a new avenue has opened for authors to publish their work without any upfront cost.

It is becoming a more common occurrence for a self-published author to get noticed by agents and editors and end up with a deal with a traditional publisher. The challenge, of course, is to sell enough copies for word of mouth to build. So far, I have done very little to market the book, relying primarily on Facebook and blogging to attract attention. Once again, it is a balancing act, where the demands of family and paying clients come first.

But, little by little, I make headway. Opportunities like this to speak to a group such as yourselves help a great deal. So, I’d like to thank you very much for inviting me to speak here today. I’m hoping what I said will intrigue you enough to make you want to read the book. Beyond that, I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it and recommend it to others.

Thank you very much.

Marriage of Peter and Suzanne

I’m very honored to have been asked to speak here today.  We’re all partaking in something very special, but I’m particularly flattered to have been accorded this role.  When Peter called to ask me to write something to say at the wedding, I asked him, “What do you want, laughter or tears?”  He said BOTH.  So here goes:  Peter, Suzanne, there is NO CHECK in the envelope.  Suzanne may be laughing, but Peter knows me well enough to believe it, so he’s crying — at least on the inside.

The truth is I have always been able to get Peter to believe anything.  When we were kids, as his older cousin, I could tell him outlandish stories, and he’d buy whatever I was selling.  So when he asked me to speak about marriage, I thought, well, he’s going to believe what I say.  So my first impulse was to call Suzanne and find out what she wants him to believe.

But then he said something that made me take this responsibility seriously.  He said, “I want you to say something because you have a good marriage.”  And I thought, I do?  I mean, I think I do, but how does he know, as an outsider looking in, that I have a good marriage?  I’m in the marriage for sixteen years, and I’m not 100% certain what marriage is.

So that became my objective — to define marriage.  To give the newly married couple a sense of what they’d gotten themselves into, and maybe in so doing give them a star to steer by.  But before I tell you what I came up with, I’d like to share with you some of the aborted attempts.

Number 1: When my brother got married ten years ago, he signed a document in Hebrew called a Katubah.  I told him he had just signed a contract agreeing to be WRONG at his wife’s convenience.  I like that definition, but I’m not certain it applies if the bride isn’t Jewish.

Number 2: A marriage is an all you can eat buffet, where there is only one entree.

Number 3: A marriage is an empty room that you spend the rest of your lives furnishing together.

Number 4: This one I really like: a marriage is a machine fueled by love and lubricated by sex and money.  If you run low on money, you better add more sex, and vice-versa.  And without love it just won’t run.

But obviously, these definitions are too facile, too shallow to capture the true meaning of marriage, which is something so important that our entire culture has been wrestling with its definition for the past few years.  And rightly so.  Marriage is of central importance to our society; every marriage made in love (regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation) strengthens the institution and, by extension, society itself.

Marriage is an act of creation, a nexus, a focal point, and a living entity.  You are taking two families, two groups of friends, two individuals, two DVD COLLECTIONS, and through the alchemy of the love you have for each other and the love we all have for you, you’re making something new.  Everyone in this room is changed today, going forward and for the rest of our lives.  We are now one family, one group of friends.  You are now one couple — with one DVD COLLECTION.  There is no going back.  Because you have chosen to join your lives, you have changed the world in a significant way because you will now grow into different human beings than you would have otherwise, and we, inasmuch as we participate in your lives and love the two of you, we will grow differently, too.  The act of creation that we witnessed today will ripple through time because you have demonstrated the LOVE, COMMITMENT, and COURAGE to merge your lives and share in each other’s futures.

If I have any advice for having a good marriage, it is for you to maintain that LOVE, COMMITMENT, and COURAGE.  Love each other at least as well – if not better – than you love your selves.  Remain committed to the relationship, regardless of the curves life throws at you; adversity is better handled as a team than as individuals.  And have the courage to communicate openly.  Don’t tell her those jeans are “unflattering” – even if she asks – that’s just stupid.  And don’t tell him the ratty old T-shirt he loves makes you embarrassed to be seen with him – just quietly make it disappear.  But have the courage to say what you really feel.  And more importantly, have the courage to listen, to really listen, to each other.  Don’t hear what you want to hear; hear what your spouse is saying, without trivializing it or interpreting it to suit your own agenda.  And finally, have the courage to embrace change.  The person you married is not the person you are going to wake up next to in ten years – metaphorically speaking.  The DNA will be the same, but a lot of other things will be different.  And that’s good.  We grow; we change. It’s what makes life interesting.  Just remember it takes work to grow together.  If being married seems too easy, you’re doing it wrong.

Remember, you’re creating something – something entirely new that has never existed before in the history of the universe – and each day you have an opportunity to both recreate and enjoy your creation.  It’s a work in progress that will keep you busy for the rest of your lives.

I started by saying that I am honored to have been asked to speak here today, and I am.  But I am more honored to be part of your lives — to not only be able to say that I was there at the beginning but to be able to look forward to many years of being part of the new family you created here today.  Mazel Tov!