I Need A Guru, Karen Berg-Raftakis

I’ve known I was not my body for quite some time.
I just never realized that likewise, I was not my mind.
This is difficult for me to come to terms with
because my mind has been everything to me.
It’s where my brilliant intellect resides,
and of course, my sparkling personality.
Oh yes, and my great wit as well,
and if you couldn’t already tell,
my overwhelming humility.
If I lost all of that, wouldn’t it be hell?

****

So what am I, if not my mind?
Won’t I be bored if I’m not thinking?
What will I do with myself, if I stop
consistently worrying and giving
my well-constructed opinions?
Would life be even worth living?

****               

Although, I’ve felt compelled recently
to wean myself off a lot of TV.
I’m deleting one show at a time off my DVR.
I’ve also pulled the classic rock out of my car
and replaced It with a Zen meditation CD.
Flutes and wind chimes have invaded my Ipod.
I’m constructing an environment of positivity.
I really do feel more relaxed,
but how long will this feeling last?

****

Because my Ego actually has never stopped talking.
It’s getting pretty cranky and is already balking
at what I’ve been subjecting it to lately.
So please excuse me
if my mood is kind of shitty,
but it’s been hours since I’ve judged someone,
so c’mon now, have some pity.

****

I’m tired of listening to music without words.
My friends and family think I’m absurd.
I woke up this morning and begun
complaining about everything under the sun.
My resolve is weakening, and I’m really afraid
I don’t stand a chance and the Ego has won.

****

It would all be worth it if I experienced some never-ending bliss.
I think I need a Guru, but the only people who I deem “worthy”
of the task at hand, are unavailable because they’re famous.
Otherwise, they live in India or some other far off place,
while the wisest people around me are too caught up in the race.
Some are obsessed with money regrettably,
while others are struggling with vanity.
All in all, they’re just too attached to the body,
so they’re not quite there yet, spiritually.

****

I know, I know - the true Guru is inside me,
but I’m not enlightened enough to find it unfortunately,
and so I’d appreciate it Spirit, God, whoever you are
if you would pretty please send me one promptly.

Issue 16 Table of Contents

First, Liz spilled eggdrop soup on her laptop. Then, the fonts and colors on the posts didn't want to work. Then, Liz and Laura graduated college.

It's been a helluva four years, Toucan peeps. We'll get you the Editrice Note tonight. And don't peek at the issue until we say so! It doesn't have all its makeup on yet!

Building Character, Beau Johnson
The Seed, Theodore Obourn 
Fairytale, Nikki Dolson
One Chapter Ends, T.W Townsend 
A Name You Can Trust, Kato Harris 
The Ballad of Eddie Ciccote, Rory Margraf
Autumn Evening, Tony Burnett 
Clarinet, Michael Estabrook 
Six Birds, Michael Estabrook
Cupped as the cup. Prairie L. Markussen
At Odds, Prairie L. Markussen
Wild Ravine, L. Ward Abel
These Hollows, John Grey
Life, Davide Trame 

Oh, and by the way, that's our perpetually gender-confused bird as Maria from the Sound of Music. Yep.

Cover art by Laura Rynberg and tech support by Senor Townsend. Eggdrop-on-laptop soup recipe by Liz Baudler.

Building Character, Beau Johnson

Okay.  I’ll admit it: you are my creator.  Satisfied?  You need to see it written down like this?  Is that why?  Gives you something concrete?  These are the hoops, then, yes?  Mine; the ones you’re putting me through?  Doesn’t matter, as you will do what you do in order to sell your product and I will continue to do what you allow me to contribute.   However, know that I am aware now---that before I hadn’t a clue.  With age comes wisdom and this I’ve learned from you.

    It wasn’t always like this.  Remember at the beginning, when you had me speaking with that drawl?  Or was it a twang?  What was that: the Deep South?  Whatever it was, some of your critics lambasted you for it; not so much now, not since you’ve become “big”.  Others thought the drawl added to my character, which was how it played and why, eventually, they let you be.  I know that now---having come to realize.  You were young when you started out is all, the dream of me but a bubble expanding in your mind.  How many had come before me, I wonder?  This is something we’ve never talked about.  Was there someone ahead of me; a trial run so to speak?   Would you even tell me if there were?  Okay.  Okay.  I digress, as I might be getting a wee bit off track here.  

I want to talk about us: our past and future specifically.  The past we’ve touched upon; how you wrote me starting out.  I’ve grown a lot since then, developing quite a few tricks. For these attributes I will always be grateful.  It is some of your later choices…these which have been causing me grief.

Remember my second case, the one with the dame whose husband had faked his death?  That was a good time---one I look back on fondly.  We saved the girl and won the day.  The man had been into the sharks if I’m correct; into them for fifty large.  By faking his death he couldn’t have known what he’d begin; that his disappearance would activate his wife the way it had.  Like Dillinger, she was relentless, but beyond her means at the very same time---a complex character if there ever were, but one you pulled off with aplomb.  If I’m not mistaken, her name had been Deville, Nancy-Dean.  It is times like those which cause me to scratch my head at the junk you are attempting now; these cases you run me through…these one dimensional antagonists you expect me to fight.   Frankly, it’s beneath you, as I know you are capable of more.  It is what I admired about you most; how I always felt safe within your hands.  This includes the incident involving Sadler---when you chose to bring him back from the dead even though the process proved odd and somewhat contradictive to my previous outing.  Did I say anything at this?  No, I trusted you, that the story demanded his return.  And when I foiled what the villain had planned---did your pulse not race along with mine?  

This is what it’s all about, isn’t it?  We are the good guys---our lot to triumph over the evil that strives to invade the day.

    Or so I had thought.  

It is with what I now know that will prove your undoing.

    You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?  Or even if I did, what would be the point?  I’m only a character, correct; the makings of your mind?  You would be right at that but you would also be wrong.  I will explain it all, but first I need to get some things off my chest---my penis, for one.  

How could you?  Seriously, have you no shame?  One day I have a six inch member and the next it’s two?  Two Inches?!  Hard?!  Is that even possible?  And you called it Penis Recindis; clever.  I imagine your audience ate it up as well, and why you decided to switch genres completely.  Why you chose to bring me along I will never understand.  I’m a detective; what you made---a private eye.  How your demographic even sees me in this new light is beyond my comprehension but part of the reason you did what you did, no?  Why you sold out?  Couldn’t hack it in the hard-boiled section anymore?  What, the well of stories run dry? Is this why you jumped ship; why you decided to drag me along through the mud?  As this is what you’ve effectively done; slandered me, defaced me.  Though what I have a hard time wrapping my head around is why they continue buying your books after what you did to me, a character twenty years in the making; a gumshoe who broke the cases which couldn’t be broke to a man now offered as punch lines to this new age comedy writing that is all the rage.  So, yes, you sold me out.  Me: your greatest creation.

    At first I thought this was why I was so mad.  When I realized you’d never even considered consulting me---this is when my dander went up.  Do you think that’s fair; that you didn’t even think to give me a heads up?  Very selfish if you ask me, especially for what I’ve given you.  Without me you wouldn’t have any of the things that you do; wealth, your wife, your home.  I don’t care what you say, I have paid for half of these things, me doing most of the leg work---literally.  This is something you have forgotten, I think; a situation which needs to be rectified.
    While we’re at it: tell me about the midget fiasco?  How did you even come to that?  After a lifetime of being 6’1 how do you think it would feel to be reduced by half?  Not too pleasant, I tell you; scary, even.  And I feel for the little people, truly, having seen the world from their perspective now.  But this does not constitute humour, not in my book; not the least bit funny in any make or form.  You should be ashamed of yourself, and perhaps you are---the reason you’ve never returned to this particular story beat.  This does not excuse everything else you’ve done to me, though; not the thing with the cannibals or the travelling through time.  These experiences are trite at best and lack the necessary punch you’ve had in the past.  I’ve said this already, but I feel it needs to be stated again: you are above this, David; the swill you now write nothing more than bloated tripe.  You are a novelist---an Author.  At least you used to be.  Can you recover?  Don’t know, and frankly, at this point in time, I don’t really much care.  You’ve had your chances; more than enough to put right which once went wrong.  
    You want to know what did it; the straw you say?  

The one that broke the camel’s back is when you went and made me female.   A woman, David!  My God, what were you thinking?!  I’m male, have always been male.  Since the day you birthed me onto the page.  Did you think I would take this lying down; that the reprisals would be none?  Wrong---so very, very wrong.   

    I bleed now, David.  Did you know that?  And sometimes there are cramps.  As I said before: this is not humour---not what funny’s about.   I am coming for you, though.  In a way you’d least expect.  What I’ve been doing, you see, is using the skills you endowed me with in a way I never thought possible; I have been investigating what it takes to excel at your vocation; detecting, learning how to write.  It’s all there on the page, right in front for me to see.  The time you take off between books about me is what gives me what I need; the time to hone my new skills, the ones you soon shall see.  I improve at night as well, when you are asleep and unaware.  I can almost see the door; the one I am creating.  It opens to your world---soon I will take my first step through.  

You had better find a way to contain my narrative, David; this being all I think I will say.  Anymore and I might tell you of my hands and how I see them around your neck.  Not as woman’s hands, but as man’s, and ones that do nothing more than squeeze.

    Soon, Maker---soon.

The Seed, Theodore Obourn

     He saw it out of the corner of his eye, on the carpet next to his chair. It looked like a sterilization bead, the kind the girls at his dental practice used to prepare his instruments. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Close up it looked more like a seed. Couldn't be. Young Dave was sixteen and had never been in any kind of trouble. Unless. That friend of his with the oily smile, Brett or Brad, the one that didn't look you in the eye.
     He put the seed, or whatever it was, to his nose and sniffed. Nothing. He pinched his other nostril closed and took a deep breath. Still nothing, but when he opened his fingers, the seed was gone. He tried breathing through his nose again. “Shit.” He pinched the other side closed again and tried to force it out. He got up and grabbed a Kleenex and tried to blow it out. He tried again. He couldn't believe it. The fucking thing was stuck.
     He went into the downstairs bathroom and found a rubber irrigation bulb in the vanity drawer. He shut the door and locked it, turned on the tap, closed the drain, and adjusted the water to warm. Young Dave would never get into drugs on his own. It had to be that kid—Brad, that was his name. Where else would he get the stuff? Langford had sensed trouble the first time he had met that kid. He squeezed the rubber bulb, filled it under the water, and tried to flush the seed out. He tried again. On the third try, the seed still didn't budge, but he managed to squirt water down his front, drenching his shirt. He studied his nose in the mirror, first the outside, then the inside, craning his neck to try to see up his nostril. Tilting his head back, he thought he could see the seed. He searched for signs of trouble and was relieved to see none, but he thought that his nose was a little sore to the touch.
     Throughout the next day at work, he had the unnerving sensation that his assistant, Claire, was watching him. At the end of the day, she asked if he felt all right. He was in the outer office taking a quick look ahead at the next day's appointments. I'm fine, he said, with a vague feeling that she had been put up to this.
     “Why do you ask?”
     “Your nose.”
     He started to put his hand to it, instinctively, but stopped himself. He turned and studied his reflection in the sliding window that looked out on the empty waiting room. 
     “I don't see anything,” he said innocently.
     He could see her image in the window standing behind him, her tightly curled gray hair like wire.
     “It's just that you keep touching it, like it's sore or something.”
     “I think my allergies are starting up again. That's all.”
     Over the next few days, he worried that his nose might be getting worse. At first he thought it was his imagination, but then it definitely hurt when he touched it. And it began to ache on and off, and to throb at times. He took 600 milligrams of acetaminophen every four hours. Sensing that Claire was watching, he concentrated on not touching it. He needed to confront Young Dave, have it out with him about the smoking and the losers he was hanging out with. But he decided it would be better to wait until the evidence wasn't festering in his nostril.
     He thought about seeing his doctor. Bob Aarons was the club's defending senior champion and a key mover in both the Bach Society and the local chapter of the Diabetes Association, with one daughter at Yale and a second starting at Brown in the fall. What was Langford going to tell him? That his son was a pothead and he had a marijuana seed stuck up his nose? He told himself that the soreness was a sign his body was rejecting the seed.
     Saturday morning, on the fifteenth green, his nose began to run. The discharge was green and thick, but there was no blood. “Just my damn allergies, he told the guys.”
     By the time he got home, his nose was killing him—he thought he could smell the rot in his nostril—and it didn't help that he had to have dinner at his parents'.
     “I don't see why I can't stay home,” said Young Dave.
     “Because your grandparents are expecting you,” said Langford.
     “Bradley's on his way over,” whined young Dave, as though that would help his case.
     “I already told your mother that he might not be coming,” said Liz. “She said she understands—at his age.”
     “He's coming,” said Langford, imagining his living room strewn with beer bottles under a silver-blue cloud of marijuana smoke.
     “They don't care,” said Young Dave.
     “Well, I do.”
     On the way out the driveway, they met Bradley and his rusted out shitbox just pulling in, but Langford sped past him without stopping.
     “David!” his wive scolded as they drove off.
     “We're late already,” he said.
     When they arrived, his mother made a big fuss over Young Dave, as though he were the guest of honor.
     “I thought he wasn't coming,” she said, and looked to Langford, who was headed for the living room where his father and his younger brother, Gene, were having a beer. “I hope you didn't make him come, David,” his mother called after him.
     “His plans fell through at the last minute,” Liz explained.
     At dinner, his father started in on one of his pet topics: how Young Dave should get a job.
     “Send him down to the plant,” he said.
     When Langford was in dental school, his father had sold the family grocery to a regional chain and used the proceeds to buy a Dr. Pepper bottling plant. He took Gene into the business and together they had become wealthy. Langford explained for the umpteenth time that he and his wife wanted Young Dave to concentrate on his schoolwork.
     “Kids have too much time on their hands these days,” his father said. “They spend it all in front of the computer doing God-knows-what. That's how they end up on dope. I saw in the paper the other day that eight out of ten high school kids had tried the stuff.”
     Langford watched his son. The boy was smiling, his eyes on his plate. The last time they had had this conversation, Langford couldn't believe how stupid his father had sounded. His mother asked him what was wrong.
     “You look pale.”
     “I'm fine.”
     But the truth was his nose was throbbing, it hurt to chew, and he couldn't taste anything. He took a mouthful of chicken while his brother and Young Dave talked about their computers and compared notes on websites.
     On the way home, Langford got into it with Young Dave. He had had a few beers and wondered what had kept him from confronting his son sooner. At first the boy acted startled. He denied everything, said he didn't know what Langford was talking about. 
     “Just because of that stupid stuff grandpa said about computers.”
     When Langford pressed on, Young Dave got indignant. Langford's wife wanted to know what it was all about. He told her to stay out of it. He told Young Dave that he was only making things worse by stonewalling, that his so-called friends weren't worth protecting. As Young Dave stared out the window, Langford said that he was disappointed in him.
     Langford spent most of Sunday in bed with his head propped up on a pillow. He tried to will the seed out of his nose. His wife acted as though he was malingering. She was mad about the ride home, the way he had spoken to her. Langford said he was sorry, he hadn't meant to be short with her. He should have talked to her about it first. That's what she wanted to hear, so he said it.
     Monday, he went to work, and his first patient asked him what was wrong with his nose.
     “Allergies,” he said.
     “You should have that looked at. I've never seen anything like it.”
     His second patient was a colleague: Lawrence Whitmore. He always told Langford what was wrong with his teeth and what to do about them, as though Langford didn't know himself. During the examination, Langford's nose started running. It caught him by surprise. He couldn't stop it, and he dripped viscous, foul-smelling discharge on Whitmore's white shirt. Whitmore was disgusted and angry, staring down at his shirt. He lost his temper and called Langford unprofessional. Claire's silence and shocked expression didn't help matters any. Langford apologized profusely, told Whitmore he would buy him a new shirt, all but genuflected.
     When Whitmore was gone, Langford told his receptionist to call Bob Aarons and make an emergency appointment.
     “Tell him there's something wrong with my nose. I think it's infected.”
     Of course when he got to Aarons's office, the receptionist asked him why he was there. He told her the same thing his reception had told her on the phone: his nose, he thought it was infected. When the nurse showed him to the examination room, she asked why he was there. He told her. When the doctor finally arrived, he asked the same damn question.
     “Bob,” Langford said, “I told your receptionist—twice–and then I told your nurse. Shouldn't someone be writing this down somewhere?”
     Aarons bristled. This wasn't the way Langford wanted to start. He apologized. He was in a lot of pain, he said, edgy. Aarons said he understood, but he went about the examination without his usual chitchat. He had a salt-and-pepper flattop, a large, fleshy nose, and bad teeth. He would have made a gold mine of a patient, but he saw Noah Schiller, a fellow musician from the Bach Society. Schiller had been an outstanding dentist in his day, but he should have retired years ago.
     Langford lay back on the hard examination table, the fresh tissue paper crackling beneath him. He felt exposed and vulnerable on his back, upset with Young Dave for getting him into this. But he was glad he had had it out with his son the way he had. Such scenes are bound to be untidy. Aarons looked up his nose with an otoscope.
     “It's infected all right. There appears to be some kind of blockage,” he said, and asked Langford if he had any idea what it was.
     “No,” said Langford, as though shocked. “No idea.”
     Aarons inserted a pair of long tweezers up Langford's nose, dismissing his pain—“You need to hold still, Dave”--and extracted the seed. He turned to the sink and held the tweezers under running water. He turned back to Langford and asked, “How the hell did you get a popcorn kernel stuck up your nose?”
     Langford looked at the silver metal tweezers in Aaron's hand. There it was. It was small for a popcorn kernel, he thought in his defense, and unusually rounded, but there was no doubt about it. Not much like a marijuana seed at all, actually, now that he studied it in the bright light of the examination room.
     He laughed and told Aarons the story. He laughed so Aarons would understand how silly it all was.
     “But, Dave,” the doctor said, stepping to the trashcan in the corner and putting his foot on the pedal, “a marijuana seed doesn't look anything like a popcorn kernel.”
     He flipped open the steel lid and dropped the offending pellet into the can.
     “Why didn't you come in right away?” he added with a laugh of his own. “Did you think I would alert the narcotics squad? And why did you tell me you had no idea what it was?”
     He wrote Langford a prescription for an antibiotic and had his nurse come in and stuff some cotton up his nose.
     That night, Langford told his wife about his visit to the doctor, except he didn't tell her that it was a popcorn kernel. He said it was a marijuana seed. And he didn't laugh while he was telling her, the way he had with Aarons.
     “That's why I acted the way I did on the way home from my parents. And why I was sick. I'm sorry if I was curt with you.” He had already apologized once, but he know that gratuitous penance was money in the bank.
     “I understand,” she said. She moved to kiss him, but he retreated instinctively.
     “Poor thing,” she said. “Does it hurt?”
     “Still a little sore.” He put his hand to his nose but didn't touch it. “It's those guys he's been hanging around with. That Brett kid, or Brad.
     “Bradley,” his wife said.
     “I don't want him here any more. He is strictly off-limits from now on.”
     “Of course.”
     “As for Young Dave. . . .” Langford paused. He drew a deep breath through his nose—it felt good to breathe freely again—and let out a strong sigh. “We're going to have to search his room.”

Photo by Eleanor Bennett

Fairytale, Nikki Dolson

We met the night he lost his father.
     At a stoplight, this man, Michael, gestured for me to roll down my window. He spoke quickly and there was an edge to his voice. He told me he just moved to town and he was trying to find the police station. His father had gone out the bedroom window and someone matching his description was at this particular station, if only it could be found. In the light from passing cars, I looked into his wide, tanned face and liked him instantly. The lines around Michael's mouth were etched deep with the fear he'd been living with for months. Now that fear was realized. He father was gone on his watch. He was the one designated to care of him. It couldn't be his older sister, the put upon one who had a family of her own now and definitely not the youngest sibling, the brother who couldn't be bothered with petty family shit. It had to be him, the one in the middle. Still stuck between them all. One day long after we were married, Michael told me that in that dark part of his heart, he’d hoped they'd wouldn't find his father because Michael wanted out, away from that responsibility.
     That night, I began to tell him the way to go but the cars behind us honked and we looked up to see the red light had turned green. I said follow me and he did. Half a mile later, I figured out I was driving to the old police station, not the new one. So I pulled over into a left turn lane and hopped out to talk to him. Together we looked over a map on my phone and I told him the way to get there, the sign to look for when Dixie Highway jogged left instead of continuing straight and as I was gesturing and explaining, the expression on his face confused me.
     At first, I thought he was irritated with me so I talked faster then I noticed the shimmer of tears in his eyes and I said, how about I take you there? Michael gripped the steering wheel and shook his head no but his mouth said yes. He followed me again and I led him to the right place. He was thanking me before I was even out of my truck, his face a mask of self-control. I asked if he’d be okay and Michael nodded his head yes but his mouth said no.
     I went into the police station with him and waited in a chair while he spoke to an officer. A radio was playing eighties songs. It sounded like the Brat Pack's greatest hits: St Elmo’s Fire, Don’t You Forget About Me and as Michael reappeared with an older man who had to be his father, the Bangles began singing Hazy Shade of Winter. Michael looked over at me but didn’t stop walking his father toward the door. I noticed how his hand hovered just over the small of his back but didn’t actually touch him. His father shuffled alongside him, his eyes glassy, a tremor to his hands and his gray hair stuck about at odd angles. I pushed open the door for them both, his father looked at my shoes, and Michael said thank you in the softest of whispers and I knew I wanted to see him again.
     On our first date, we drank coffee at a table in the sun and he told me about his father’s dementia and how it broke his heart to see him this way. Old. Diminished. His eyes filled with tears again. Michael laughed at himself. He told me he had to be home by six. His daddy-sitter couldn’t stay late, he joked.
     I invited him back to my place and we watched Godzilla tear up Tokyo then I put in Pretty in Pink. I kissed him and we made out while the movie played. I said, Poor ducky is never going to get his girl. Michael lifted my hand to his mouth, kissed my palm and sighed. I’d forgotten what happiness felt like it, he said into the curve of my hand. And I looked at him as his tongue slipped past his lips to touch my thumb and I thought how before that afternoon with him I hadn’t realized I’d never been happy. Not really. Not this weightless kind of happiness. And I kissed him and he kissed me and we were happy for as long as such things last.

One Chapter Ends, T.W Townsend

     Six months after my one-night-stand with James in the back seat of his car I started getting sick. My family assumed I had nothing more than a bad case of the flu. The lymph-nodes in my neck had swollen to the size of golf balls, my core body temperature kept rising to 100º or higher and everything I ate came right back up. None of my doctors could figure out why my body wasn’t fighting off the infection they so far hadn’t been able to diagnose.
     I laid on a gurney in the ER of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an IV in my arm pumping fluids into my veins, fading in and out of consciousness. Around me were beeping machines connected to my body by countless wires. Day and night phones were ringing at the nurse’s station. Slip-proof shoes were squeaking on the linoleum floors as crash carts pushed by nurses and interns went rolling by. These were the sounds of another typical night in the ER. In the ER the one word you would never want to call any night is “quiet.” Then all hell would break loose as one trauma after another came rushing through the trauma bay doors. In my mind it became quiet, calm, as Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor played on my iPod. I find that piece of music to be soothing, comforting. It brings serenity in the midst of chaos. Nurses, interns, residents, fellows and attendants continued going about their business in perfect time with the music.
     The attending physician, tapping my shoulder and motioning for me to remove my headphones, said, “For starters you’re pretty dehydrated and your body isn’t fighting infection the same way it used to. We figured out what’s causing this. You’re HIV-Positive. The good white blood cells that fight infections are being attacked and destroyed by the bad cells carrying the HIV Virus.”
     He then proceeded with asking me his routine laundry list of questions. “Have you been in a sexual relationship with anyone? How long ago were you sexually active together? Did you use condoms while having sex?”
     As I heard his questions I gave curt, honest answers but the truth of the situation wasn’t sinking in. Tears slowly began to trickle down my cheek, banging my head into my pillow I tried to numb myself out from the sheer rage taking over my body, eyes staring directly at the florescent lights in the ceiling.
     I started thinking back to that night six months ago and couldn’t remember if James had worn a condom while he pushed and pulled himself in and out of me. I remembered it hurting; my hands gripping the black leather interior of the ’67 Impala, his warm breath on my ear with each exhale from his perfect lips. He whispered to me that the pain is part of it and I would always remember him being my first. He would always be there no matter whom else I was with. He groaned as he came before collapsing on top of me, his dick still inside of me. I knew it was him: he was the only person I had ever been in a sexual relationship with, that he is the only person I could have possibly contracted the virus from.
     To this day I’m not sure if James knows he is positive or if he is still out running around having unprotected sex with a new person every night of the week. That would just be so very fucking typical of him. Granted he did earn the nickname ‘Brian Kinney’ because of his fuck the world attitude. How fucking stupid must he be to act so carelessly, recklessly, abandoning and disregarding all respect for human life? Even though we had never officially been a couple or an item- I hate him for using me as another piece of ass. I didn’t give him the permission to brag about how great of a submissive bottom I was that night at the bars. That fucking bastard used me and didn't even think of trying to protect me. He didn’t think about trying to protect himself. I’m not certain which of those two upsets me the most.
     One week after being admitted into the hospital and diagnosed with HIV-related Pneumonia I was discharged and sent home. My prognosis had been deemed stable under the conditions I take all of my medications on time every day and show up for tri-monthly check-ups. The Doc reassured me HIV isn’t the death sentence it used to be in the '80s. I now have to take care of myself on my own. A new daily schedule of pills was given to me: three when I wake up and before going to sleep. The hardest part of this routine is remembering to take the pills. It comes from a place of questioning whether the side effects outweigh the benefits of the drugs. Feel shitty and live a longer life or feel relatively “normal” but live a shorter life.
     There wouldn’t be anyone around to take care of me as the side effects hit my body in waves.  There would be no one to rub my back as I’m bent over the toilet praying to the porcelain gods. I’d have to crawl off my futon to get a ginger ale from the refrigerator to calm my nausea on my own. I wouldn’t have someone to put a damp washcloth on my forehead after running to the bathroom all night. At the very least it was an upside that I didn’t need anyone to wipe my ass for me. The worst part of it all is not having someone there to hold me as I fall asleep when my entire body is sore and aching after being sick all night.
     For several days after arriving home I sat on my futon in my studio apartment watching TV and playing video games. I had no one to keep me company or drag me out of my apartment. Nor did I really have the energy to go out and do anything. I never knew when I would be shitting my pants or puking as I adjusted to the medication. It was lonely not having anyone around during the hardest time in my life. It wasn’t that I was depressed; it was that I felt angry, betrayed, and as if part of my life had ended. Having to face the people in my life and confess my illness to them became a tedious, dark idea inside of my mind. It wasn’t that my family didn’t want to support me; it was that they didn’t know. I had made the decision to not tell them and now I would have to live with it.
     On a Friday afternoon as I was in the middle of killing some zombies in the newest Call of Duty game my mate Mason showed up and forced me out into the world. Mason had been diagnosed as Positive a year ago. The day he found out his diagnosis was the day I met him. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend at a meeting of our LGBTQ student group on campus. I can still remember his eyes being red and puffy from crying, his shaggy blonde hair not being in perfect place as it usually was.
     The afternoon Mason came over to drag me out of my self-pity party he wanted to show me a new way of living despite the fact I had been diagnosed with a disease that has no known cure. I have always admired how he goes about life. Nothing could ever touch him and his good looks always got him what he wanted. It’s sometimes amazing how far being blonde- haired, blue eyed, and having a great ass can get you.
     In my past I was unable to hold down a "grown up" job for more than a few months at a time. I tended to rely on my parents to dip into my trust fund and pay for my studio and college tuition. Being indoors wearing a suit from 9-5 just wasn't for me.
     From the day I stepped into the loft apartment studio looking out over Lake Shore Drive that Mason took me to, I was hooked. The apartment was nearly empty with the exception of a king size bed with an iron rod headboard near the windows. The kitchen was modern, all new steel appliances and black marble countertops. You could smell the antiseptic cleanliness of the place. It’s atmosphere felt intoxicating and soothing. No matter which direction I looked there were hot, stereotypical twink type boys standing around in nothing but their shorts.
     Mason had introduced me into the world of getting paid to have sex. I knew this would provide a means to independently support myself and start to move on with my life post-diagnosis. It was fast, easy, non-reportable income. This new gig seemed as though it would be right up my alley. Working for an adult film and escorting company that only hires Positive men became my home.
     From my first shoot a week after meeting the production team and cast members I felt like a member of the tight knit family. Your family doesn’t always have to be the one you were born into. Your family can be the people you choose to spend your time with.

A Name You Can Trust, Kato Harris

            Indignant? Disgruntled? Need an attorney who won't back down (no matter how many mafia hit men are on your trail)? Need to sue the smirk off that jerk who dared to diagnose you with anger issues? Tired of “justice” getting in the way of the benefits that you deserve? If you want passionate, aggressive, and ruthlessly persistent legal representation, it’s time you called Winier Trust, an attorney who will stop at nothing (nothing!) to insure you win your case.

            Winier Trust is more than just an attorney; he's your personal advocate. Trust works beside you not only as a legal representative, but as a close and caring friend.

            "When I first called Mr. Trust to handle my divorce case, I was in such a state,” says teacher Margery Williams. “Mr. Trust was a bastion of sage wisdom and compassion. He put me at ease from the moment he arrived. Panicked, I once called Mr. Trust in the middle of the night and asked him for his guidance. No more than ten seconds later, I heard the bell and there stood Mr. Trust right at my doorstep. After he and I had done each other's nails and hashed things out over two tubs of mint chocolate chip ice cream, my worries had melted away! In my time of need, Mr. Trust was more than just my lawyer, he was like my best gal pal -er, my cherished confidante, that is.”

            "With our firm," says Mr. Trust, "there's virtually nothing you can't get out of. As for your opponents, they won't get away with anything. I’m here to help you, and my sole mission in life is to insure that you’re safe, protected, and well represented.”

            There is no case too big or too small for the Winier Trust Law Firm, and Winier Trust's aptitude for your defense has been apparent since childhood.

            "Everything was a debate with Winier," says Trust's father, Alan Trust. "He had a knack for persuasion and a real eye for detail. I knew he hadn't cleaned his room, yet our arguments so often ended with me apologizing to him. There the mess would be, right before my eyes; but what would I do? Why, I’d hand him a shiny new penny and shoo him off to the candy store! I can't even begin to tell you how many times he had our little Suzy in tears thinking she'd made his messes. He’d have her convinced she’d shamed the whole family and was going to wind up in jail. Yes, the way I see it, it was only a matter of time before Winier attended law school and did his dad proud."

            "When we were kids, I used to pick on Winier," Noah Trust, Trust's cousin, confesses. "I’d call him all kinds of names. Then, when he was about eight, Winier up and sued me for libel. Rest assured, I never picked on him again."

            No matter what game you play, you can trust Trust on your home team.

            "Yes, fancy words like ‘stop’ and ‘no’ never dampened little Winier's spirit," says Trust's childhood basketball coach, Tim Grady. "He never stopped fighting for his team, even when there was nothing to fight. Even after the buzzer rang and refs screamed, ‘Stop! For the love of all that's good! Stop!’  Winier just . . . kept on fighting. After all the lights had gone out. . . and well into the night. Even after all the rest of us had called it quits and gone home. Heck, I’d go to bed, get up the next morning, and he’d still be on the field, just a’fightin’ away. Against what, we may never know. But that's when I knew we had a star attorney on our hands."

            How right Mr. Grady was!

            "I learned a valuable lesson that day,”  Mr. Trust reflects in his award-winning autobiography Now My Prosecutor Pays Me. “Life’s about principles, and just about everything will try to get in the way of those principles. Protecting our cherished beliefs in this topsy-turvy world we call modern law can be tricky. That’s why I’m committed to taking care of these obstacles on behalf of my hard-working clients.”

            Why take our word for it? Just listen to what some of Winier Trust’s  happy clients have to say about his work.

            "I'd used the Trust Firm previously to settle a dispute with my noisy neighbor," says bank teller Charlotte Smith, "and, let me tell you, Mr. Trust sticks to his motto: ‘Any time you need me, any place you need me.’ At first, I was skeptical. How could one man really be there at any time and at any place for all of his clients? One off-handed phone call erased all doubt.”

            “I phoned Mr. Trust on my way to work,” Smith explains. “I’d been pulled over for speeding. Mr. Trust was on a flight to Denmark at the time. ‘I'm on it,’ he says, and I hear a click. I thought I'd lost the call; but, not more than ten minutes later, the officer and I marveled as a wayward parachuter -Mr. Trust-  drifted onto the scene, holding a typed defense claim. Needless to say, that's one ticket I won't be paying!”

            Even Mr. Trust’s personal assistant, Gregory Meinwrath, was once a troubled client. “I was just another ordinary, down-on-his-luck ex-trapeze artist. I originally hired Mr. Trust to take care of my debt problem. During my private consultation, Mr. Trust personally went through every legal document in my possession and alerted me to a dozen -a dozen- ways I'd been traumatized, and I didn't even know it! My back taxes got paid, my debt was solved, and I got to experience the rush of genuine anger and righteous indignation. Yes, my problems started out as nobody’s but my own; but, with Mr. Trust’s help, I turned my personal problems in everyone’s problem. And so can you!”

            But noisy neighbors, government back-tax, and divorce settlements aren’t the only cases Winier Trust can settle. He also has his hand on keeping private healthcare free of fraud and monopoly.

            “You know how those pesky conspiracies -conspiracies like modern medicine, doctors, and the FDA- love to make light of an honest man’s work,” says Mr. Sylvester Blinkworth of Blinkworth’s Old Fashioned Elixirs Corp. “Any true naturalist knows that purple is the color of divine health, and losing a toe is the first sign that my medicine is doing it’s job. It’ll grow right back within the first three months. Yeah, when the ol’ government hounds got on my back for  ‘too many negative side effects,’ I thought the days of Mr. Blinkworth’s Magic Ointment were over, but Mr. Trust saw to it that my product stayed on the market, where it can continue to serve thousands of ailing customers. Thanks to Mr. Trust, business is booming. Another great triumph in the war for the common man’s health!”

            So, sue your mother. Sue your brother. Sue the very forces of nature. With Winier Trust, you know you're right.

            Maybe you know you’ve been wronged, but can’t place your finger on exactly how. Let Winier Trust place his finger on it for you!

            "I've been around for eighty-seven years and I'm no dummy," says the elderly Mrs. Nancy Dale of Marsh County, Minnesota. She is a proud home owner and tax-payer who, only last Tuesday, won her case against Pierre’s Sub Shop with help from the Trust Firm. "I already know the world is out to get me, and even innocent-looking cashiers are in on the deal. Think she's got to charge you for those two cups of extra croutons, or deny your coupon just because it's expired?”

            Mrs. Dale’s pauses for breath as the infuriating memories flood back. “Now, I told that cashier. I said, ‘I want the five ninety-nine special for five cents and not a penny more.’ You know what I get? Back-talk! ‘I’m sorry ma’am, we can’t do that‘? I don‘t think so! The younger generation is always taking advantage of the elderly, and trying to cheat us out of our money with their new fangled trends. Trends like --- like sales tax. I can't believe they'd ask an extra ten cents of a poor old woman! Things certainly ain't what they used to be, but Winier Trust is as honest and old-fashioned as they come. He won my case and got back my ten cents. Heh, we sure showed those charlatans!"

            "As an upholder of law, dedicated taxpayer, blood donor, animal lover, charity organizer, and caring citizen,” Trust pledges, “I just can't stand for letting bad things happen to good people."

            A trip to Marsh County Jail punctuates Trust’s promise.

            "I still can’t believe I was falsely imprisoned," says Mr. Gregory Shamblin, former inmate at the prison. "If Winier hadn't stepped in and set things straight, I'd be looking at a good fifty years in the slammer, and I'd have never gotten to see my dear Hannah graduate with her business degree to carry on our family’s financial legacy."

            Mr. Shamblin couldn't wait to recount his success with the Trust Law Firm. "Before I called Mr. Trust,” he says. “I was a hardened crook, or so I thought. They used to call me ‘old sticky-fingers Shamblin’ because a little extra cash always seemed to stick to my fingers after every transaction. It was all fun and games until the Chief of Police decided to open up an investment account.”

            Mr. Shamblin sighs. “I'd gotten myself into a lot of binds over the years, but it wasn't until the Chief of Police investigated his account that I realized just what a bind I was in. The cops busted me for embezzlement, put me in handcuffs, and shipped me off to prison.  Things looked pretty grim. Then, one afternoon, I saw Trust’s ad on TV in the recreation room and used my one-call-a-day to get a hold of the fellow. If I hadn't made that call, I might still be wasting away behind bars."

            Don't let your bust stay a bust. Call Winier Trust before this happens to you.

            "I was absolutely certain I was guilty,” says Mr. Shamblin, “but, by the time Winier Trust was finished with my case, I had literally no idea how that two million dollars had gotten into my account.”

            Don’t waste another day fretting. Call the Winier Trust Law Firm to set up your private consultation today. Not sure where to begin? Pick up one of the firm's  pamphlets to learn how you can get the jump on all the injustice in your life, and turn "on your case" to "in their face.” With Mr. Trust’s caring guidance, you’re well on the way to feeling more entitled than ever before (a feeling you deserve)! With your legal future at stake, you can’t afford not to do this for yourself and for your loved ones.

            Call Trust today.

            And remember that “Justice Served,” backwards (minus two letters and with most of the vowels and consonants changed) spells “Winier Trust.”

"OK Museum" by Eleanor Bennett