Short Story: The Date

I was sitting in the cafe by the window, working on an academic article for the Journal of Ancient History, when I saw them.

It was a man and a woman, both young, though not too young–not college-aged, or immediately post-grad. The man could have been a few years older, or that may just have been the way he was dressed; buttoned up, as they used to say, to his chin, with a coat over it. Not a “formal” suit coat, but similar. More casual. He was not wearing a tie. She, on the other hand, was dressed in something more like what a college student might wear for a first date. Tight pants, a low-cut blouse with straps, both in bright colors. Nice shoes, but not high-heeled. 

They came in together, but slightly awkwardly, as if they had only just met outside the restaurant. He did not hold the door, but he looked for a moment as if he might. After a brief hesitation, he led the way to a table by the window. It was a good table–the best in the house for a view of the park outside, as I knew well, but not one I ever took. The glare from the sun as you get towards the late afternoon makes it too hard for me to see the screen of my laptop.

Despite leading the way to the table, the man waited for the woman to sit down first. She had already pulled out her phone and was scanning the QR code on the table for the menu. After a moment, he did the same. The next few minutes were spent in silence, and I returned to a difficult passage about Late Imperial rituals of power. I’m not sure how long afterwards (I always lose track of time when writing) it was when the woman finally spoke.

“Have you been here before?” 

The man must have shook his head, but I didn’t see it. “So why did you tell me to meet you here?” the woman asked, a new note in her voice.

I looked over to see the man shrug. He was thin–too thin, I thought, and a little uncomfortable in his own body. He raised one hand in a meaningless gesture. “Well, it’s near where you said you worked. I was going to be driving out here all this way anyway, so I didn’t want you to have to go far.” His voice was oddly flat, and he didn’t meet her eyes.

Her voice now held an unmistakable undercurrent of tension; it might have been anger or some other suppressed emotion. “And you didn’t think to ask me where I’d like to go? You know I live just around the corner.” She had blonde hair and those odd little bangs. She was wearing flesh-colored lipgloss.

He looked down at his phone, scrolling through the menu again. “Well…” he ventured. “You told me to pick the place. Since you said I’d be driving farther. I thought…”

“Well,” she said, “obviously I assumed you’d pick a place you’d been to before. Or at least because the food was something you liked.” 

He didn’t respond; he was looking down at his phone still. 

She looked vaguely in my direction; I turned back to my laptop. “Picking an interesting or exotic restaurant would have shown personality. Or picking a safer restaurant you’d been to before would have shown that you cared about me having a nice time. Or you could have responded by asking me to pick a restaurant since you knew I knew the area better and wanted to show you valued my preferences. And because of the dietary restrictions I listed on my profile.” Her voice now was not angry, but unfocused, like someone reading off a Powerpoint slide. I glanced back at her face; she was looking right at me. I turned quickly back again to my laptop screen, and tried hard to focus on Ambrose of Milan’s meeting with Magnus Maximus rather than the one in front of me. It was difficult. 

The man sighed. “The Monte Cristo Sandwich looks good.” I glanced over to see him looking around vaguely for the waiter, one hand raised awkwardly again.

Short Story: La Cafe

[There has been a lot of discussion about the JFK assassination in the last year or so. Because of that, I felt it important to finally reveal to everyone the truth about who killed JFK and why. Please note that because of its setting and content, the below story unavoidably contains offensive language and content, and that I endorse absolutely none of the sentiments expressed therein.]

Nothing about the man stood out to me. He was entirely unusual in every respect–but that was what made him blend in.

La Cafe was, as its name indicated, a coffee shop at the outskirts of a college town. It was exactly one street over from the main road where undergraduate women clustered in Starbucks and Caribou Coffee, and had been around, or so locals told me, since at least the early 1970s, though there was some debate over whether the name might have changed in the mid-’80s. It served bitter black coffee, Great Value tea bags in lukewarm water, and obviously store-bought croissants. You had to add the sugar yourself from a porcelain bowl on the counter: whipped cream was not an option.

On the plus side, the purportedly Albanian family that owned La Cafe had not visited or exercised any oversight over the place for roughly forty years, and the manager, a 60-something woman named Beth who wore knitted winter hats all year round, spent her days in her “office” (the main storage room), gambling on her phone: she was rumored to be an alcoholic, but no one had caught her at it yet. As a result, anyone and everyone was welcome to spend eight to twelve hours a day in the minimally-heated interior of the place, or sit at any of the ten to twelve tables scattered around the grassy, uncovered patio outside, or use either of the two filthy bathrooms hastily relabeled as gender-neutral in the mid-2010s, without ever ordering anything at all. Most importantly, there was free, unsecured wi-fi.

Taken as a whole, then, La Cafe was shunned by anyone with taste, friends, social status, or an orientation towards modern coffee-shop-culture and/or personal safety, but embraced by poverty-stricken graduate students, homeless people, failed academics, intellectual poseurs, con men, the clinically insane, and various lonely cast-offs desperate for any kind of proximity to what they perversely persisted in regarding as the Life of the Mind.

Did I belong to any of those categories? That’s a good question. I didn’t think so at the time: but looking back I have my doubts.

Roughly two years prior to my meeting with the strange man, I had finally finished my PhD after nine and a half years of increasingly strained meetings with my advisor ended with a shouted ultimatum and a rushed, desultory defense over Zoom. For the next few years, I worked as an adjunct, failed to pay my rent, and sent off two applications a week for tenure-track positions and prestigious post-docs with names like “the Young Talent Enrichment Program.” I have never been able to work out whether this was the worst or something approaching the best time of my life.

Then, abruptly, on an icy March day where half of my Persian poetry class had again failed to turn in their final projects, I received an email from Messrs. Snodgrass and Beit cordially informing me that I had inherited from an estranged uncle more money than I had ever imagined.

Up to that point, I had assumed, like most people, that inheriting unimaginable sums from estranged uncles was something that only happened in stories. Since then, I have on innumerable occasions pointed out the folly of this all-too-common misconception: pointing out that most people in America still have siblings and therefore their children will have uncles, that some number of these uncles are statistically certain to become wealthy, that wealthy is said in many ways, that given the growing income gap what used to be considered merely upper middle class is now as good as rich anyway, that earning lots of money often clashes with the time and affections necessary for a happy family life and so leads to estrangement with family members, that even wealthy uncles must inevitably die, that they too must feel the basic cultural and indeed biological imperative to hand on something of themselves to the next generation, that an estrangement with one’s siblings need not necessarily apply to nieces and nephews, that a lack of personal contacts with those inheriting logically must mean less where estates are large and estate-planning largely carried out by lawyers, and that consequently there is in itself nothing more logical and indeed commonplace in human history than inheriting an unimaginable sum of money from an estranged uncle. 

Whenever the matter has come up socially since then, I have endeavored–more, I admit, for the sake of my own pride than anything else--to give the impression that the inheritance did not come as a surprise to me, that I had in fact expected it and planned on it for many years, and of course this was why I had pursued a graduate degree in such a poorly-renumerated field as Medieval Persian poetry, failed to complete my PhD in less than nine years, and then worked for two years as an adjunct.

As a matter of fact, this impression is false. I had not even the smallest inkling that my uncle–whom I had seen only twice in my entire life–would choose to leave any money to me, let alone what amounted to his entire fortune. To tell the truth, I had largely forgotten that I had an uncle, and had in fact told several women I dated in graduate school that my father was an only child–using this as a key psychological factor to explain why he had failed to understand my uniquely sensitive disposition and consequently left me unable to feel and receive normal human affection and so in desperate need of remedial attention from women. When I did occasionally remember my uncle, I certainly remembered that he was a fabulously successful and wealthy engineer–but given that my uncle’s first two marriages had between them produced two children, given that he had never actually directly spoken to me that I could remember, and given that the only time I had seen him interact with my father had ended in a shouting match, it had simply never occurred to me that he might choose to leave me anything.

I am still not really sure why he chose to do so. My leading theory has always been spite towards his own children: though I cannot entirely rule out spite towards his ex-wives, my father, his business associates, himself, and/or me. Life is unfortunately filled with mysteries, and I had no interest in unravelling any of them.

In any case, my sudden inheritance left me in a very sticky situation. On the one hand, I had for years been telling everyone I knew how much I hated my job, my students, and my field. On the other hand, my failed academic career had for more than ten years given me my only meaning in life, my entire sense of self, my only topic of conversation, and my only reason whatsoever for ever leaving my bed. Still, in the end I could think of no excuse that would hold water with my colleagues, my students, or my increasingly rare dates: I resigned.

During my time as an adjunct, I had frequently complained that I lacked the time to work on both my academic monograph on Rumi and a science-fiction novel in which my original viewpoint on life would be explored via a painstakingly detailed description of the poetry, literature, politics, society, and sex lives of alien grubs. Having quit my job, I no longer had an excuse not to work on these projects. Unfortunately, I quickly found that I loathed both of them as well.

Theoretically, I could have simply moved away to somewhere warm and inviting, or gone on vacation to the Bahamas and never come back. Every time I considered these options, though, my head would spin, a cold sweat would break out on the back of my neck, and I found myself unable to sleep for the next several days. Like it or not, this town had become my home–and the last thing I needed in the throes of such an emotionally disturbing transition (as I reminded myself constantly during this time, many lottery winners kill themselves) was a drastic change in milieu.

No longer having any colleagues, students, or advisors to ask about what I was doing, I briefly considered simply giving up any active efforts whatsoever, watching television all day, and ordering take-out for all my meals. A devastating encounter with a former student at Walgreen’s, however, confirmed me in my ultimately illusory, but nonetheless deeply felt need to at least fake some kind of productivity.

Hence, within about two months of my inheritance, I found myself spending ten hours a day, six days a week sitting behind my laptop at a corner table at La Cafe, scrolling through Twitter, watching Shakira music videos and DnD streams, and occasionally adding and then deleting a paragraph or two of text to my two project documents.

Short Story: Election Day

Election Day

“It’s election day today…will you do your duty?”

“Of course, monsieur,” Farouk said, bending slightly over Mr. Wedgewood as he slid the gold-enameled pot of Turkish coffee onto the bone-white saucer atop the white-and-silver tablecloth with a single white-gloved hand. With his other hand, he carefully set the white sugar bowl down to the right of the saucer, with the centers aligned, then laid the silver sugar spoon on top of it at a precise 220-degree angle.

Farouk was a tall, slightly stooped man with a long thin face wrinkled like a raisin under a round head covered in tightly-packed, jet-black curls. Customers often asked him if he dyed his hair; each time they did, he would smile primly, pressing his thin lips together, and not answer. They also often asked him how old he was: each time they did, he would open his lips, revealing carefully-polished teeth, and say, “Forty-five, monsieur.” Then he would chuckle once–a quiet, rich noise from deep in his throat–and continue his rounds. These moments were some of the happiest in his days.

But Farouk would get no such pleasure today. “I’m sure you know what’s at stake this election,” Mr. Wedgewood said, eyeing him a little coldly from behind his OmniGlasses, and not picking up the cup. He was a rather corpulent man of fifty or so, with dark skin and a totally bald head that he ran his fingers over frequently, as though searching for his missing hairs. “If the Neo-Revanchists are able to get the Presidency this time…well, that’s it for Democracy. If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.”

“Yes, monsieur,” Farouk said, smoothing out a wrinkled spot in the tablecloth. “Would monsieur care for one of his usual Pistachio Creams?” He avoided looking into Mr. Wedgewood’s eyes: though Monsieur Beauvilliers had emphatically taught the importance of eye contact with customers, Farouk had found the shifting melange of light and color that danced across the semi-transparent surface of the OmniGlasses gave him a headache. He stared as courteously as possible at Mr. Wedgewood’s star-shaped diamond lapel pin instead.

“I would think you would take this more seriously,” Mr. Wedgewood said, a little louder. “You know it’s people like you and I who will be the first to suffer.”

“Of course, monsieur,” Farouk said, bowing slightly and stepping away from the table. “Your humble servant will give you a moment to think about your order.”

He stepped over smartly to Mrs. Kumar’s table, bowing again before rapidly removing the remains of her cake and coffee. “Would Madam be wanting anything else today?” Surreptitiously, he brushed the cake crumbs off the tablecloth: Mrs. Kumar was a messy eater. 

He straightened up and waited; but after a moment realized that Mrs. Kumar had not noticed him. She was glued to the images and text on her OmniGlasses, her mouth slowly open to reveal yellowing teeth. “Madam?” he repeated, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “Would you care for anything else?”

“Dammit, Farouk,” she said, shoving him roughly away, so that he stumbled and nearly fell. “Can’t you see I’m upset? That damned Liberal Transhumanist Greenway is going to win the Presidency again.” She glared at the little screens again, her upper lip projecting, small tears glittering on the edges of her eyes. “Oh, damn you, bring me some of that what’s-em-you-call-it, the, um, you know, what I had last week.”

Farouk straightened up, then bowed once more for good measure. “I believe Madam is referring to our Vanilla-Cardamom Cream Cake. Madam has again made an excellent choice. Would Madam be wanting any tea or coffee with that?”

“You know what I want,” Mrs. Kumar said. “Just bring it to me, God damn you. Before these fucking do-gooders wipe me out and I have to start begging.”

“Yes, Madam, a rose-water tea as Madam prefers,” Farouk said. “Your humble servant will make sure it arrives promptly.”

Death of the Son, Episode IX: Dinner with a Murderer

Death of the Son, Episode IX

Dinner with a Murderer

[Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; Episode Six; Episode Seven; Episode Eight; Episode Nine] 

[This episode concludes the serial novel 'Death of the Son.' Until the sequel!]

They were back in the cool of the Imperial Palace, walking through the endless marbled corridors: Theodotus, the eunuch of Constantine, and a single soldier. 

The men in front of him showed no concern; the eunuch sauntered slowly, swinging his hips theatrically from side to side, and even the soldier slouched as he walked. Again and again, Theodotus had to abruptly slow his pace to keep from bumping into them; and each time he did, he gripped the dagger stowed at his waist, making sure it did not jostle or fall. He could not fail now through impatience; too much was at stake. 

In a few minutes, he told himself. I am going to have dinner with the Emperor Constantine. Then I will kill him. 

But somehow, none of it seemed real; he was in a dream, sleeplessly wandering the corridors of the haunted palace. Any moment now, the dead Empress would emerge from a doorway and speak to him again. "For my children," she had said, her mouth dripping blood. But where were her children? He shook himself, and nearly stumbled into the eunuch in front of him again; then nearly did so again as the eunuch stopped completely, then turned slowly to face him. 

Theodotus looked around; they were in front of a small door in the corridor. As he watched, the eunuch gestured him, with a complex, flourishing wave, to enter. Steeling himself, he stepped inside.

But he was only in a small storeroom, lit with a single, wavering oil lamp. The eunuch tittered, covering his mouth with one hand. "Did you really think we would take you to see the Emperor looking like that?" His thin hand traced its way across Theodotus' dirty black tunic, stained with blood. "Here's what's going to happen; I'll leave, and you'll put this on. Then we'll go to the Augustus." One hand touched Theodotus in the chest, while the other gestured towards an ornate silver-and-black assemblage set in the corner. "And you should really clean yourself up while you're at it," he added, gesturing to a bowl of water and a brush beside it. "You clerics...no sense of propriety." He shifted his hand to touch Theodotus on the arm, then shut the door, leaving Theodotus to dress in the flickering darkness.

As he reached for the robe, a stray memory flickered to life: the first time he had put on his deacon's robes, in the little sacristy of the cathedral in Antioch, just before his ordination. Those robes had been linen; these were silk, and the crosses were woven of real silver. He put on the heavy tunic, then the chlamys, clasping it with a golden broach. Apart from the crosses and the richness of the fabric, it might have been a military cloak; a reminiscence cemented as he reached down and slid the pugilo into the leather belt, under the chlamys, fastening the clasps just as he remembered.

But which was he, the soldier or the deacon? Or was he somehow both? 

He shook these thoughts away, and stepped out of the room to find the eunuch and soldier lounging against the wall opposite, laughing together. The eunuch looked him up and down, then stepped over and began adjusting small parts of his robes, pulling out a part there, tucking it in here, and clucking gently to himself all the while. As his hand strayed toward the belt, Theodotus grabbed him roughly. "Enough," he said. "Take me to Constantine."

The eunuch tittered again. "Why, deacon..." he said. "I don't know what you've heard about eunuchs, but...I have standards." He withdrew his hand. "And you didn't even touch the brush...well, the Emperor has no one to blame but himself. Very well. Come." His sauntering air gave way to sudden brusqueness, and he was away, walking faster this time, and gesturing impatiently for Theodotus and the soldier to follow. 

The soldier brought up the rear this time, his armor clattering as he walked; Theodotus barely suppressed the urge to seize the dagger at his waist. The corridors were nearly empty now, as bishops and courtiers dined and rested from the effort of the morning's assembly; but here and there slaves moved silently about, cleaning and carrying out small errands. A slave holding a large tray pressed himself against a wall just in time to avoid the eunuch, who was racing forward with small steps and did not slow his pace or look at him. As they passed by, Theodotus glanced at the slave: it was the German, Flavius. Theodotus felt the man's eyes narrow, and for a second saw reflected in them the strange scene he must be: the unkempt appearance, the rich robes, the soldier and the eunuch and the deacon.

Then Flavius had disappeared again, and abruptly they were there, outside the large, ornate door of what was obviously a dining room. The eunuch stopped, and gestured Theodotus forward. "Go on," he said, frowning. "The Emperor's been in a mood all day...I'm not going in there. And if he complains about your appearance..." The eunuch raised his hands in mock frustration. Theodotus, though, needed no reminder; he had already wrenched open the door a small crack and stepped through.

Death of the Son, Episode IX: Flight and Fight

Death of the Son, Episode IX

Flight and Fight

[Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; Episode Six; Episode Seven; Episode Eight] 

Theodotus followed two black-robed slaves through a whirling, dissolving mass of white-clad bishops, priests, and deacons, mailclad soldiers, togaed Senators, and robed officials of every type. The sense of chaos in the vast space of the Basilica of Galerius was overwhelming, and entirely different from the rigid order that had unified the assembly only a few moments before.

Something has happened, Theodotus knew; and so did all the other powerful men racing to leave, pushing and shoving and maneuvering around each other like frightened animals. 

But what had happened? The powerful Spanish bishop Hosius, favored advisor of the Emperor for years, had delivered a speech to Constantine's face that had in some way challenged or upset him; he had announced his imminent departure back to Spain; and the Emperor had suddenly left, ending the assembly hours before it had been expected. This was not a crisis of state in any typical sense: but it was nevertheless clearly a crisis.

One of the two slaves behind him touched his arm, steering him slightly around a knot of worried-looking Imperial officials, wearing Phrygian caps and whispering in agitated voices. One of them shot him an angry look, as if to say: What have you Christians done this time?

Theodotus fought simultaneous impulses to laugh and freeze in terror. What have we done?

Death of the Son, Episode VIII: In the Assembly of the Great King

Death of the Son, Episode VIII

In the Assembly of the Great King 

[Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; Episode Six; Episode Seven]

Theodotus and Apollon slept, again, in their quarters--but only after Theodotus had made something of a show of locking all the doors, propping furniture carefully against them as the old priest watched nervously. It was all so much theater: if the Emperor's slaves wish to take us, they will do so. Otherwise, I am more than a match for any lone assailant. A locked door will not hold anyone determined. Yet Apollon seemed truly reassured, and after only a few minutes Theodotus had the satisfaction of hearing, through his own door, the old man's snores.

He himself, though, stayed awake a great deal longer, lying in his bed, his head propped up on his hands, considering the events of the previous day, and those about to come. 

There must, he was sure, be some way to make sense of this tale...to wrest some victory from the jaws of apparent defeat. If he could only understand the players involved...deduce the secret both Crispus and Fausta had known, which Apollon had almost heard...the secret that had somehow involved the dead Emperor Licinius...the secret which he must know, when at last he spoke with Constantine...the secret that might save Eustathius' life...

But what could the secret be? So far as he and everyone else know, Licinius' tale was straightforward, if twisted in a way not uncommon for Emperors in time of civil war. A Dacian, friend of Galerius, appointed Augustus of the West to contain the usurpers Constantine and Maxentius...but unlike his fellow Tetrarchs, wise enough to see Constantine's potential, and first tolerate him, then ally with him against Maximinus Daza. Then for nearly ten years, Augustus of the East, ruling from Nicomedia, in partnership with Constantine. 

In his mind's eye, Theodotus saw the statue he had passed every day, along his route from apartment to the chancery, for nearly a decade: the heavy body, the long head, the staring eyes gazing upwards, the small, confident smile. Licinius had been the Emperor he, and everyone in the East, had looked up to, appealed to, praised and thanked for defeating the cruel pagan, the arch-persecutor Daza, and bringing the Persecution to a close. Like most, Theodotus had payed little attention to the second, smaller statue set up beside Licinius', with its sharp nose and broad face and grave expression: Licinius' Western colleague Constantine. It was only when that second statue abruptly disappeared, one morning, from its place at Licinius' side that he, and everyone else, realized that civil war had begun. 

The rest had been only rumors, let slip by tired soldiers in the taverns, or boasted of by confident, well-fed men in the market-places. Again and again, Theodotus had come into the room where his fellow court deacons worked to find them all huddled together, faces grave, discussing the latest news. Incursions, troop movements, raids, persecutions...

As the weeks went by, the talk turned more and more to this latter category. Licinius, it was said, had begun to fear the Christian clergy of his domain, seeing in them advocates and supporters of Constantine: spies, or worse. Bishops, it was said, had been arrested and put on trial before the Emperor for treason, priests expelled from the palace as spies. On every face, Theodotus saw the same fearful, enclosed expression, the same stirring memories, though no one ever actually spoke the words flicking through their mins: it is happening again...

As during the persecution, the people of Antioch began withdrawing. The crowds in the cathedral thinned by nearly a third; people began giving clerics a wide berth in the marketplace; and even the shopkeepers and slaves in the cookshops avoided Theodotus' eyes as they took his coins. Everywhere, there was a tense expectancy, like a storm about to break. 

Theodotus had not known the previous bishop, Philogonius, at all well; apart from brief meetings where he and the other deacons explained the cases and proposed judgments of the court for his approval, the two men had never spoken. Yet he remembered well the sermon Philogonius had given barely two years before, at the height of the war. 

The old bishop, like them all, had lived through the Persecution; barely ten years had passed since Daza's famous indulgences in the arena of Antioch. His thin, grizzled face had been pale even next to his white robe, and his hand had shaken as he had delivered his discourse. 

He had exhorted them, obliquely and carefully, saying nothing that might call down Licinius' wrath or those of officials, to endurance. He called to their minds the sufferings of the martyrs; and his frozen face and unblinking eyes showed clearly that he was remembering even as he spoke. The martyrs, he had reminded them, had considered the loss of their earthly possessions, even the loss of their hands and eyes (everyone's faces involuntarily turning toward the old bishop's empty socket), as nothing in comparison to the gain of heaven. It made no sense, the bishop insisted, to save perishing trifles and in so doing lose imperishable treasure. Still, he insisted, those who had left the Church and returned to their former ways of life out of fear would be welcomed back upon their return. But those who fled from Christ would never receive his rewards.

The display had been effective; the crowds of departing Christians slowed to a trickle, and many returned, shame-faced, to receive the bishop's forgiveness. Among the clergy of Antioch, though, Philogonius' courage had caused a panic. The deacons abandoned their work entirely, and instead spent all their time discussing when the hammer would fall, when and where and how Licinius would take his revenge against their bishop for speaking so openly. 

Abruptly, discussion of the Persecution ceased being taboo among the clergy of Antioch. Stories were swapped, in low tones, of brave men and women, and weak men and women, and their individual fates; of creative punishments administered to bishops by Daza, by local governors, in arenas and palace chambers and prisons. The implications, though never stated openly, were always the same: this is what will happen to Philogonius. Theodotus had taken no part in these discussions, but had wondered, idly, as he continued with his own work, if any of these discussions came to Philogonius' ears, and what the old man thought of it. He suspected the bishop had plenty of memories of his own to occupy him.

At last, it had, apparently, happened. A young priest, Eukalion, burst into the court office, just as the deacons were gathering to leave for the day, to tell them that a messenger had arrived for the bishop from Licinius. Though Eukalion had not heard the message himself, rumors had it that Philogonius had been summoned to Byzantium, where Licinius was currently holed up. Licinius, Eukalion speculated, must be furious; his rages, it was said, had grown worse and worse, and it was said he had had clerics killed in front of him, just like Daza. Even an invitation to court, Eukalion declaimed, his cheeks pale, was as good as a death sentence.

In the end, of course, nothing had happened. Whether or not Philogonius had been summoned to Byzantium, he did not go; nor was Licinius in Byzantium much longer. Within a matter of months, the old bishop was dead; a development not, Theodotus suspected, at all unrelated to the strain of those feverish months. This development seemed to sap the courage of the clergy of Antioch entirely; though month after month discussions were raised over electing a new bishop, nothing was done. There was no point, his fellow deacon Martinus had whispered, shrugging his shoulders, in electing someone who would go straight into the arena.  

As the months passed by without incident, however, the specter of persecution did not dissipate; it seemed rather, to hang in the air over the city, dimming the sunlight. People went about their business with heads bowed, shooting resentful glances at the cathedral, treating it like a bad omen. After the initial flurry of activity, the civil war seemed to have stalled; though there were still rumors of battles, they were less plausible and more fanciful, and the people stopped discussing them. The cookshop Theodotus visited every evening for his dinner was now nearly silent, with people standing quietly in line and even the slave at the counter sullen.

Without a bishop, though, the work of the episcopal court ground to a halt; and Theodotus and his fellow deacons were reassigned to delivering food for the poor. This meant a great deal of traipsing through the streets, day and night, which allowed Theodotus an even better sense of the city's mood. It had soured, and it was clear the souring was against Licinius. People stopped paying respect to his statues as they passed, and a few even spit; graffiti calling for Constantine's victory appeared throughout the city, and after a few months the local Imperial administration gave up on removing it. A statue of Licinius, it was said, had been torn down in the night; and though it was set up and shining again when Theodotus saw it the next morning, soldiers with round shields slung on their backs now watched it, sweating under their armor and shooting suspicious glances at passersby.

Again, the crowds in the cathedral dwindled, though this time it was likely as much due to lack of a preacher than fear of persecution. The smaller chapels throughout the city, when Theodotus passed by them, seemed fuller than ever, people unable to fit inside down on their knees praying for deliverance and, increasingly, for Constantine's victory. Persecutor or not, Licinius had lost the confidence of his people.  Living under Galerius and Daza had been frightening, but living under a possible persecutor was an intolerable strain, from which only the Christian Emperor could deliver them.

Finally, the war broke out again in earnest; not mere rumors, but detailed reports soon began pouring into the city, passed eagerly from well-dressed Imperial messengers in tabernae or soldiers in the town squares or slaves from the Palace; they spoke of battle after battle, all, it seemed, lost by Licinius and won by Constantine. Licinius' army of 150,000, it was said, had been routed by Constantine's much smaller force, bearing the sign of the chi-rho on their shields and with the Emperor's divine totem, the labarum (the design of which, it was said, had been given to him in a dream) borne before them. Licinius too, it was whispered, had dreamed of Christ taking the diadem from his head and placing it on a statue of Constantine. Bodies of martyrs, fresh from the slaughter, had spoken, telling of Licinius' defeat, and predicting his imminent demise. 

Most trumpeted of all, however, was the news of the total defeat of the Eastern Emperor's fleet, the ships taken or burned off the Hellespont after a bold tactical maneuver had encircled them. The commander who had originated this strategy, and bravely led his men in boarding Licinius' ships, was not Constantine, though, but a heretofore unknown figure in the East: the Emperor's brilliant, dashing son, a great strategist, and equally brave, a pious Christian like his father, who had prayed on bended knee before a cross just before the battle: a worthy heir to the throne, a new Christian Emperor, a guarantee against any future persecution. His name, it seemed, was Crispus.

At that, Theodotus' thoughts were brought back, with a jolt, to the present. He sat up in bed, and silently mouthed the words: Constantine murdered Crispus. The Emperor killed his son.

Almost angrily, he lay back down again, and tried to force his mind to consider, once again, what the secret might be. 

Death of the Son, EP 7: Apollon's Tale

Death of the Son, Episode Seven: Apollon's Tale

[Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; Episode Six]

When they reached Hosius' chambers again, after a long, silent tramp through the streets and corridors (Theodotus having to run to keep up with Hosius' heedless strides), the rooms were empty.

Theodotus glanced at Hosius in surprise, but the old man was still silent; after a few minutes, he crossed the sitting room into his private cell, and the door shut with a click. 

Theodotus shook his head in frustrated resignation. I demanded that we meet with Constantine; and he agreed. But he will need time to adjust to what we just discovered. 

Theodotus, though, needed no such time, at least in his own mind. He began pacing the floors of the chamber, around the chairs and tables piled with scrolls and codices, around and around and around.

So we are all doomed. Very soon now, Helena will leave Rome; and Constantine will learn what we have done. And if we do not reach him first...who knows what he will do? Perhaps he will send his soldiers here, and arrest us. Hosius and Eustathius will be disgraced; and I will be punished as a scapegoat for them all. And all I will have to comfort myself with is that I fulfilled my bishop's commands, that I upheld my penance, that I solved the puzzle. 

But how can I solve the puzzle? Helena instigated Fausta's death; about that there can be no doubt. But who else was involved? Who were these conspirators Constantine made use of, who were so afraid of her being publicly tried, who were so afraid of a secret she might tell?

The slave Flavius told me that a one-eyed man had led Fausta to her death; a martyr? A terrible thought...and then the slave-woman told me that a priest had accosted her, heard her story, and forgiven her sins, swearing her to silence; the same man, or another? And if he was not the same man, how would he have known what had taken place? Or even known to interrogate the slaves? 

Somewhere in this palace, there is another clergyman, or many perhaps, who knows as much as me, or more. But why? Is he responsible for what has happened, covering his tracks, or only curious? Is he an ally, or an enemy?

And still we are no closer to learning why Crispus himself was put to death. Helena blamed Fausta for instigating Crispus' death, to advance her own childrens' claim to the throne. But what evidence did she have? None at all. Hosius and Eustathius are engaged in theological controversy, with Eusebius and many others...they claim Crispus for an ally, but was he? They blame their theological opponents for his death, but what evidence do they have? None at all. 

It is all mirage, a phantom. This is not an investigation; it is a ghost story, a myth, a hall lined with mirrors. And why should it be an investigation at all? What mystery is it that Emperors kill? That men of violence commit violence? We clergy, so recently escaped from the Persecution, should know that better than anyone. And yet we wish to delude ourselves into believing Constantine is different;  just as we delude ourselves into believing that behind petty human wickedness, cruelty, violence, there is some higher purpose at work, for good or evil. The Persecution was not a plan of God, or the Devil; it was merely policy. There is no mystery in Constantine killing his son. Crispus was a war hero, a great general, a gifted administrator; a natural successor; a natural threat. Why shouldn't Constantine kill him?

And what am I doing here, now, in this palace, dressed in deacon's robes, investigating the death of Emperors at the command of a Christian bishop? I was only a poor man. The Tetrarchs made me a soldier, made me kill, for their own purposes. The old man drove me into the clergy for his own purposes. Vitalis made me work in the Episcopal Court for his own purposes. And then Eustathius, forced me to come here. He, too, is playing politics, stirring up controversy and conflict for his own reasons. He is an ideologue, a fanatic; such men are not to be trusted. He told me nothing. And I am less than a pawn.

He stopped walking abruptly, breathing heavily; and as if at a signal, the door opened, and Apollon tumbled into the room.

The 2024 Election

THE 2024 ELECTION

I went to the polls this past Wednesday to vote in the 2024 Election. 

I think we can all, regardless of our political beliefs, agree that this is the most important election of our lifetimes, perhaps in the entire history of our nation, even of the human race. Hence, I wanted to make sure to participate fully in the event by voting early.

The week before, I had received in the mail a missive from the pro-turnout Super-PAC "Democracy in Action." The ad featured a grainy photograph of me, taken apparently from across the street near my house, and pinned to an ordinary piece of lined paper. Above the photograph, scrawled in black marker, was the message: "IF YOU DO NOT VOTE WE WILL KILL YOUR FAMILY." 

Since the Pandemic, the roads I would ordinarily take to get to the polling site have been "Closed for Repair," blocked off with yellow tape and barbed wire and barricades and medical checkpoints. To get there now means a dangerous journey down the River; and as I lacked the requisite funds to hire the well-armored personnel transports that serve most voters in my generally upscale neighborhood, I had to make do with one of the "General Admission" voting ferries sponsored by Bain Capital, LP as part of a get-out-the-vote effort ultimately masterminded (according to Internet rumor) by Kamala Harris' husband's aunt's former accountant, now the CEO of an Albanian arms company with ties to the UAE. 

I set out just before dawn so as to arrive at the jetty in time for the scheduled 7:15 AM departure time; but as it turned out, the ferry was nearly three hours late, arriving just after 10 AM. When I first arrived at the jetty, there were only a few elderly women there, apparently Kamala Harris campaign volunteers, in oversized, lime-green t-shirts worn down to their ankles, clustered around a large pot of stew stirring and adding herbs from fanny packs around their waists. One of them offered me a cup of soup, but as I had already eaten breakfast I declined. 

After about half an hour, a few apparent voters arrived, one an old man dressed in rags, barefoot, with a long grizzled beard, wearing a MAGA hat on his head; the other a tall, thin young woman bundled up to her eyes in blue-tinted furs, who (after eagerly accepting a cup of soup) eyed me suspiciously and crossed to the far end of the jetty to sit crosslegged on the planks. The morning was cool and dim, and fog shrouded the banks all around us. From time to time, I pulled out and checked the sample ballot in my pocket, or sat and watched the huge, dark shapes moving in the water below. 

When the boat had still not arrived at 9:30, I found myself hungry once again, and belatedly approached the old women, who eyed me eagerly, licking their lips. "C-could I have some soup please?" I stammered. 

The tallest of the old women, with rank, black hair that might have been dyed, dipped a cup of the soup out of the cast-iron pot, began handing it to me, then stopped, her eyes going dark, and hissing out of suddenly pressed lips: "Which side are you on?" I said nothing, and after another moment she smiled again and handed me the cup of soup. There was no spoon.

The soup had been cooking on an open flame for hours, and by this time had something of the consistency of glue--but its pungent flavors of sage and rosemary reminded me irresistibly of long summer evenings on the patio at Luigi's Pizza, and I wolfed down the whole cup in a matter of minutes. 

A few minutes after 10 o'clock, the jetty was abruptly flooded with passengers, all, male and female, clad in the loose brown tunics and smocks typical of peasants in the lowlands, many with campaign buttons pinned onto the smocks, and all bearing pilgrim's staves and large rucksacks. A few led mules or donkeys, and all pointedly refused the old women's offer of soup. Some wandered sociably around the jetty from end to end, while others sat with their feet swinging off the end and throwing stones or pieces of bread from their rucksack into the water for the creatures below; but all talked loudly with each other about the election, the journey, and the latest poll forecasts and modeling from FiveThirtyEight. 

The young woman, meanwhile, had gotten up and fled to stand with the old women, who spoke to her and stroked her hair comfortingly while (almost imperceptibly) pulling off small pieces of it to add to their pot. 

A few minutes later, when the ferry at last came into sight, the assembled passengers broke into raucous applause, cheering and throwing their rucksacks and bits of bread into the air. The day was cool, dark, and misty, so at first the yellow light streaming from the ferry was so overwhelming that I had to shield my face with my hand.

Story: The Hotel

The Hotel

The elevator doors opened, the mirrored image of his own face parting in two and departing to be replaced by a long, carpeted hallway. He glanced at the small, pixelated number in the display screen above the control panel–the 23rd floor–and gingerly stepped over the threshold.

With a piercing chime and an almost inaudible whir the doors began to close. He turned his head just in time to see his image come together again, with only a small seam in the middle: a tall, stooped man in black, cleanshaven, with a scarred lip and a rather worried expression. He smiled, as if to himself–and looked, to himself, all the stranger.

With no warning, a scream sounded behind him–muffled and almost indistinguishable from the background hum of the air-conditioner, but loud enough that he spun around at once. 

The hallway stretched in front of him, with no one in sight.

He stood there for a minute, studying the scene, as if waiting for something or someone to emerge. 

The carpet was gray but patterned with odd bars of brown and tan, scattered in a strict but haphazard-looking pattern, all pointing in the same direction. The walls were papered in gray with similar patterns of bronze bars, but connected and at right angles, forming odd, swastika-like formations in and around the white featureless doors, set in patterns of three and two on alternating sides of the corridor, each with its own bronze and black number plate. The ceiling was large white panels patterned with small flecks like birdseed; small, compact lights, bulbs enclosed in four-cornered black metal cages filled in with panes of clouded glass, were positioned every ten feet along it, each one casting a faint pool of light onto the floor below. 

After more than a minute, the scream had not been repeated; and he began walking, slowly at first, tentatively, his stride lengthening, growing firmer with each step. He did not look either to the right or the left until he came to a crossroads of sorts, where one path branched out from the main hallway to the left at a perpendicular angle. After a momentary hesitation, he took the path, passing around a squared bend as he did so; fifty feet more, and he reached a T in the corridor, the blank wall ahead of him looming over a single table, green formica, on which was set an angular bronze lamp with a subtly patterned tan hood set over it. The lamp was off.

Death of the Son, Episode Six: Interview with an Empress

Death of the Son, Episode Six: 

Interview with an Empress

[Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five]

"Is he awake?"

In his memory, the old woman approached the couch slowly, her hands trembling. The soldier, however, did not tremble, but stayed perfectly still, his eyes open, but hoping--somehow--that she would not notice. 

But the old man's strong hands gripped him suddenly by the shoulders--those gnarled hands somehow so much stronger than those of his trainer or the optio of his century or the other soldiers who grappled with him each morning; with them all, he had fought and struggled and often thrown off their arms, but with the old man, the very idea of resistance seemed absurd--and rolled him in a moment over onto his back, exposed, his eyes suspended without recourse beneath the great, dark ones of the old woman. 

But the hand on his shoulder now was not that of the old deacon, but of the bishop Hosius--and Theodotus shook himself out of his reverie to find that it was Hosius' brown eyes, many shades brighter than those of the old woman, that now looked intently into his own.

How long, oh Lord? When will my penance be complete?

"Are you ready?" Theodotus felt, unexpectedly, a flash of anger, though whether at Hosius or Christ he could not be sure. Must everything be a test?

But he was coming out of his reverie now, and the anger was quickly lost, as it always was, in a rush of understanding. Hosius is no longer trying to test me; he is afraid, and looking for reassurance.

After a moment, then, he put his hand awkwardly on the older man's shoulder--just as the old man would have done. "Don't worry: we are carrying out our Lord's business, and he will help us," he said--just as the old man would have said. He wondered if the words sounded as awkward and hesitant to Hosius as they did to him.

But Hosius seemed satisfied. He turned rapidly back to the little, black-haired slave-woman who had been watching them, not without amusement, from behind her strange blue eyes. "Take us to the Empress." She bowed, stiffly, and led the way through the labyrinthine corridors of the Empress' Palace. 

As they walked, Theodotus again found himself studying the decor carefully--and was again struck both by what he saw, and what he did not. He had only recently been in the Imperial Palace, decorated and prepared for the Emperor's residence--before that he had on a number of occasions set foot in the palaces and mansions of the Antiochene rich, investigating a crime or bearing some message from the Episcopal Court. Only once, early in his tenure as a deacon, he had visited the Widow's House, where those holy women prayed and contemplated and fed themselves and the poor at the bishop's expense. That had been a sizeable dwelling for its place in the city, a donation from some local grandee, but cramped and austere, like a military barracks, narrow corridors and innumerable small bedrooms bearing little decoration but the occasional gilded image of Christ or the Virgin. He understood that Eustathius had since built a new, larger residence for them, using the funds that Constantine so beneficently showered down upon the dioceses--but he could not imagine it differing overmuch from its original. 

Helena's Palace, though, resembled none of these models, but rather a strange melding of them all, a material imprinted indelibly with something that he gradually came to perceive as the personality of the woman who reigned within it. At first glance, the religious house loomed largest--in the darkness and austerity of the corridors, the gilded mosaics and paintings of Christ and martyrs prominently displayed in every room, and most of all in the women moving here and there dressed in the rough, dark cloth, sewn with crosses, that served nearly everywhere in the Empire as the badge of consecrated widows and virgins. A minute later, though, and the signs of prosperity began to assert themselves--in the size of the rooms and corridors, the colored marble floors, the impressionistic paintings, false windows and doors and gardens, covering every wall, behind and above and around the religious images, and the occasional niches bearing draped or missing pagan statuettes. 

So far, though, it might be any wealthy woman's house recently converted into an impromptu haven for ascetics--of which many had sprung up throughout the Empire, even in Antioch. It was only when he passed into a sitting room and found himself confronted with a life-size porphyry image of Constantine and Helena, both reclining on couches with their hands joined, that he found himself suddenly confronted with the fact that he was in a house of royalty. After that, though, he began to find the signs everywhere--in the labyrinthine size and extent of the palace itself, the verdant pleasure gardens, trees and vines and flowers in abundance, glimpsed through real windows and doors, and most of all in the images of the Imperial family found in nearly every room, carved into statue groupings or painted onto the walls. 

It was with an even greater shock, though, that he found himself, turning another corner, suddenly staring into the face of the woman he had seen in his dream--Fausta herself, the Emperor's recently-deceased wife, seated in arrogant, beauteous splendor above the doorway, next to Helena, and with another young woman on her mother-in-law's other side, black hair elegantly curled and a broad face drawn in a wide smile. 

He glanced at Hosius. "Crispus' wife? ...she...?" 

The old bishop's brows tightened; but a shake of the head was his only response.

This encounter soured Theodotus' already shaken mood. For the first time, his intellectual interest gave away to a sense of the uncanny about this strange house, an Imperial Palace filled with images of living Christs and dead women. Even the living women...further glances dispelled his initial sense of familiarity in the figures that inhabited this strange landscape. That young woman in the simple brown dress...was she in fact a consecrated virgin? Or was she, perhaps, merely a fashionable young women, of some wealthy family, playing the devotee for a day, or merely there to gossip and enjoy the Empress' pleasure gardens? That older woman in richer garb, busied with clearing a table...was she a widow? Or was she merely a slave, the well-dressed servant of a great lady? Even those two women with crosses sewn on their dresses...were they officially sanctioned ascetics, their vows received by the bishop, or were they merely pious, wealthy laywomen dressed as them: or were they some third thing, outside of his current conception of the Church? 

And of course, the central question itself: what was Helena herself? Was she a widow of the Church, or an ordinary great lady of Rome: or was she simply the Empress, infinitely exalted above all others by the wealth of the Empire and the devotion of her son? What was Helena?

Story: The Meeting

 [This story is based on real events.]

“Where is Jeanine? The meeting is about to start.”

The menu of the Rockhouse Cafe had changed again–an extra page at the front with seasonal specials. Minerva’s face twisted uneasily as she flipped quickly past it to Entrees. Her finger found the chicken with potatoes, rested there in reassurance for a moment–and then a spasm of energy drove it away, back to her cellphone.

“She said she would be coming–where is she? Don’t worry, we still have ten minutes before the meeting: more people will be coming.”

This last remark to the thin young man with bleached-blond, spiked hair sitting at her right hand, who was trying to occupy himself by looking carefully over the seasonal specials.

“If we don’t get five more people, the vote won’t be valid–we won’t have a quorum.” This remark to the plump, comfortable-looking woman on her other side, who was looking rather sleepy and had not opened her menu.

“Well,” the woman said. “I’m sure they’ll turn up soon.” She yawned.

Minerva’s thin face crinkled. “I don’t know why they keep those asparagus on the menu–it’s an embarrassment. Where is Jeanine?”

She grabbed the phone lying next to the red plastic glass of water and dialed the number again. Before it could go to voicemail, she thumbed it off and dropped it onto the table again. “Anne, do you have the Mitchells’ number?” 

The plump woman smiled. “No, I think Bob does, though. He should be here soon.”

“Tell Bob he’s going to be late!” Minerva barked to the thin, frightened-looking older man sitting across from her. He flinched.

“Um, honey…”

The door opened, and Minerva spun her head around; it was the Marvins, both thin and blond and frowning. They sat down at the other end of the table, as far from Minerva as possible.

“See? More people will be here.” She nodded to the young man again, who was in the process of drinking from his water cup. He coughed, spilling some water on the table, and she frowned.

“We still need three more people to make a quorum!” she hissed at Anne.

“Can I get y’all anything else to drink?” Minerva started: the waitress was back, a thin young woman wearing a black vest with a broad smile on her face.

She turned over the menu card: where were the drinks?

The young man at her right had already piped up, smiling as he did so. “I’ll have a Dr. Pepper.” The woman smiled back, and Minerva frowned as she glanced between the two of them.

“Anne, what are you having?”

“White wine, please.” Anne yawned again. “Cabernet.” 

“I’ll just have a Coke.” Bob had arrived, a large man with a round face and a well-groomed beard. He sat down heavily next to Anne and looked with interest at the young man. “So you’re the artist!” 

The young man smiled. “John,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.” 

“Bob,” said Bob, looking down at his menu. “Do they still have the oysters special?” 

“No,” the waitress said. “I’m sorry. We do have oysters at our regular price, though. And the new special is Seafood Scampi.”

“Bob,” Minerva said, glancing over at him in annoyance. “Don’t you think we should wait to order food until everyone gets here?”

Bob shrugged. “Is anyone else coming?”

The Arrest

[This short story recently came to me in a dream, complete and pretty much as you read it below.]

The Arrest

“It’s good to be back.”

Harry Monroe looked with satisfaction around his little office at the back of the precinct, solemnly surveying the pictures of the wife and kids, the corkboard adorned with newspaper clippings, the soiled mugs and the broken coffee machine. He ran his hands up his own front, savoring the feel of the uniform, the hard edges of the badge. The tightness of his belt around his stomach, the weight of the handgun at his hip…all were familiar and comforting. He let out an involuntary sigh of pleasure.

Without further ceremony, he sat down at his desk, driving a cloud of dust from the ancient upholstery, pushing aside a cold, scummed cup of coffee, and grabbing the first sheet from the stack of paperwork to the left of the green desk lamp. The heavy, bronze pen was where it should be; grabbing it, he pounded it on the desk to release the point, then turned his attention to the paper in front of him. His eyes found the top column: 

CERTIFICATE FX-8792B: ARREST NOTICE.

The following document is an internal POLICE DOCUMENT. The content is CONFIDENTIAL and not to be shared with others except following submission of an approved, notarized GR-89C document. The BOOKING OFFICER must fill in the following information accurately, double-checking with RECORDS if necessary. The man who is about to–

There was a knock on the glass of his door, muffled by the heavy blinds hanging across from them. Not glancing up, he shouted, as he always did, “ENTER!” and was pleased that his voice had emerged as gruff as ever–the voice that had served him so well on the beat, that still could make interns and trainees flinch and run for cover just like the street punks. Its effects were again evident in the slight, hesitating silence that preceded the opening of the door, gingerly, by Officer Reynolds. Harry smiled with satisfaction. Still scared of me after all these years… 

As Reynolds stepped carefully in the room, his eyes found the desk and moved from it to the figure sitting behind it. His eyes widened in shock as they met Harry’s face and the mouth in his round face gaped open foolishly, revealing mismatched teeth. 

Harry felt a mix of amusement and anger stirring in his chest. Did he not know I was coming back? Reynolds was looking around in confusion, his eyes running nervously around the corkboard, the pictures, the coffee cups…

“Anything wrong, officer?”

Reynolds all but jumped. 

“Um, sir, we have a booking today and–”

“Bring ‘im in.” Harry said curtly, looking back down at the form for effect. When he glanced back up after a moment, Reynolds had visibly steeled himself and was gesturing to the officer behind him. Harry’s face split into a broad grin: coming into the room flanked by two officers, shuffling a little on his lanky legs and with the pinched eyes in his thin, unshaven face downcast, was Harold Jackson. 

Harry put down his pen and sat back, putting a booted foot theatrically on his desk.

“Well, Harold. If this isn’t nostalgic. Back again, are we?”

Harold did not look up. His mouth was hanging open, a small bit of drool escaping, and his sad, dark eyes seemed to be tracing the tiles on the floor. 

Harry smiled even wider. “Well, I’m sure you got nostalgic for your home away from home. What was it this time? Another drug charge? Unregistered handgun? Or something better this time, something that will let me get you off the streets for good?”

Silently, Reynolds handed him a pink sheet of paper. Harry glanced down at it briefly:

GUILTY. FOREVER.

He all but laughed. “You’ll be staying with us for a while, I see. So we’ll just let these nice officers take you away, and I’ll get to the paperwork.”

With a sudden motion that sent the coffee mug rattling away towards the window, he brought his foot back down onto the floor, and sat up straighter than before. He looked directly into Harold’s pinched eyes; then, overcome with emotion, back down at his desk again.

“You know, Harold, this job can be a real bitch sometimes.” His eyes were closed, and he fingered the gun in his holster for comfort. “Having to put up with the fucking little street punks and rats, dealing with the DA, the paperwork, the hours, training, liability…all that bullshit. But the satisfying part, the part that makes it all worthwhile, that does some real good for the world, is getting to take people like you out of society for good, locking up subhuman scum and throwing away the key. Welcome back.”

He opened his eyes to see the look on the punk’s face one more time…

The office was empty, and the door shut.

For a moment, he gaped just like Reynolds, and like Reynolds glanced stupidly around the office. How could…? 

But with a shudder the thought came to him how foolish he must look, how powerless, gaping around the room like a trainee, all but drooling…he pulled himself together and smiled sourly. 

“Kids these days…don’t even have the time to listen to my speeches. Damn Harold. Well, let’s make sure he has a nice long stay…”

He looked around the desk for the document Reynolds had given him; it was gone. He started to bend over to check the floor, but stopped himself again. Can’t be seen climbing over the floor like a janitor. I can fill in the document from memory, and blame it on Reynolds if it isn’t right.

But the arrest notice was gone, too, and after a moment of confusion, he realized it was back at the top of the stack. Must have put it there without thinking while I was gabbing with Harold. He grabbed it with one hand, and the pen with the other, and continued filling in the document. After a moment, he realized that the pen was not writing; the point had retracted (he must have done it absentmindedly while talking). He punched it on the desk angrily and resumed writing on the line that said “ABSENCE OF RESIDENCE.” But the whole document was blank; nothing had been filled in yet. He glanced back up at the heading:

The following document is an internal POLICE DOCUMENT. The contents are CONFIDENTIAL and not to be shared with anyone. The BOOKING OFFICER must fill in the correct information, and only the correct information, as specified in Form DX-12 with RECORDS if necessary. In one moment you will hear–

There was a sharp rap on the door. He looked up suddenly, and after a lengthy silence quietly, and a bit hoarsely, grunted out “ENTER!” 

This time, the door was pushed open more confidently, and Officer Reynolds’ round ruddy face preceded him into the room. 

“Back to bring me that paper, eh? I–” But he was stopped short by the look of astonishment on Reynold’s face. Did the fool already forget…? In his anger, he failed to say anything at all, and after an awkward moment, Reynolds waved an unsteady hand towards him, looking backward nervously as he did so.

“I…uh…sir, we booked…” 

Traipsing in slowly between two officers was Harold Jackson, dragging his feet and all but drooling on the floor. He did not raise his eyes. Harry looked at Reynolds in confusion, but the man was still looking away from him. He turned his eyes toward Harold.

“Found your cell uncomfortable, eh, Harold? Something else I can do for you before we lock you up forever?”

Harold did not respond, and Reynolds was now gaping at him uncomfortably. There was a strange prickle at the back of his neck, he looked down at the document at his desk to buy time. 

“You’ll be staying with us for a while, I see. So we’ll just let these nice officers take you away, and I’ll get to the paperwork.”

There was another awkward silence. Ignoring it, he began writing, talking as he did so from between clenched teeth.

“You know, Harold, this job can be a real bitch sometimes. Having to put up with the fucking little street punks and rats, dealing with the DA, the paperwork, the hours, training, liability…all that bullshit. But the satisfying part, the part that makes it all worthwhile, that does some real good for the world, is getting to take people like you out of society for good, locking up subhuman–”

But something was wrong; he could no longer hear the shuffling of Harold’s feet, or Reynold’s heavy breathing. He looked up sharply. 

The office was empty, the door shut. 

This time, he stared for only a moment. He grabbed for his pen, realized the point had retracted, opened it, and started writing; but the document was gone from the top of his desk. Snatching it from the top of the pile, he started in at the top of the document:

The following document is an internal POLICE DOCUMENT. The contents are CONFIDENTIAL and bring with them a terrible judgment. The BOOKING OFFICER must always remember that the day will come when–

There was a rap at the door. This time, he did not hesitate, but stood up abruptly, sending the coffee mug flying and shouting “ENTER!” in a magnificently booming voice. There was a very long pause before Reynolds entered, gingerly, not looking up until he got to the desk. When he did, there was again an expression of surprise and shock on his face; but Harry had already waved to the officer behind him. “Bring ‘im in!”

In shuffled Harold Jackson between two officers. Racing around the desk, Harry stepped right up to the man, pushing up against his chest, right into his face. Harold flinched away, his eyes widening. Harry could smell the alcohol on his breath, the fear…

Turning around, he snatched the pink document from Reynolds and sat back down. He grabbed his pen and poised it over the paper.

“You’ll be staying with us for a while, I see. So we’ll just let these nice officers take you away, and I’ll get to the paperwork.”

He dropped the pen and laughed.

“You know, Harold, this job can be a real bitch sometimes. Having to put up with the fucking little street punks and rats, dealing with the DA, the paperwork, the hours, training, liability…all that bullshit. But the satisfying part, the part that makes it all worthwhile, that does some real good for the world–”

The room was empty, the door shut. 

He laughed out loud again, more manically this time, grabbed the pen, brought out the point, snatched the document from the top of the pile, and started writing. 

There was a sharp rap at the blinds, and he all but ran to the door, wrenching it open and dragging Reynolds into the room. He barely saw the man’s eyes widen in shock before the tall, lanky form of Harold Jackson filled the doorway, surrounded by two officers. Harry ran to him and drove a sharp fist into his gut, feeling the satisfying rush of air from his lungs, the blood spurting from his mouth, savoring the taste of adrenaline in his own…

He turned around and sat back down at his desk, grabbing the pen once again.

“You’ll be staying with us for a while, I see. So we’ll just let these nice officers take you away, and I’ll get to the paperwork.”

He threw the pen at Harold, who flinched, spitting more blood. Harry laughed loud and long, spinning in his chair, and finally coming to a stop with his face resting on the desk.

“You know, Harold, this job can be a real bitch sometimes. Having–”

The door was shut, the room empty. Before he had time to do anything, the door had opened, and Officer Reynolds had come in, Harold Jackson following close behind him. 

Harry stood up from the desk.

“You know–”

Officer Reynolds was gripping his charge tightly by the forearm, and the two officers behind him crowded in close. The blinds on the office door were drawn, and he could see nothing through them. After hesitating for a second, Reynolds rapped gently on the door; a gruff “ENTER” sounded from within.

Gingerly, almost fearfully, Reynolds entered the room. The officer behind him pushed hard on his shoulder, and Harry followed suit, dragging his feet.

Harold Jackson looked up from the desk, the eyes in his narrow face scanning Reynolds, the officers, and finally coming to rest on Harry Monroe’s face. Harry’s eyes widened in shock, and he started to open his mouth to speak, but Harold cut him off.

“You know, Harold, this job can be a real bitch sometimes.” Harold laughed. “Having to put up with the fucking little street punks and rats, dealing with the DA, the paperwork, the hours, training, liability…all that bullshit. But the satisfying part, the part that makes it all worthwhile, that does some real good for the world, is getting to take people like you out of society for good, locking up subhuman scum and throwing away the key. Welcome back.”

Harry screamed. The officers surrounding him gripped both forearms, pinioning him and marching him out of the office. 

They were in a narrow, dark corridor now, with gray walls that seemed to go on endlessly. A voice–his own–spoke:

“It’s good to be back.”