Amelia Gray: AM/PM

Terrence cannot think of a job position with more weight in the title than lifeguard. “Firefighter” simply describes. “Pastor” makes little sense, outside of a treatment for meat in Mexico. Usually pork. However, “lifeguard” carries with it a great deal of gravity which many might consider unearned by the lanky youths typically found atop most lifeguard stands. Terrence offers himself as a humble exception to the rule: out of shape and in full awareness of the importance of his position.

Three bathers prepare to enter the water. Terrence watches very closely from his stand, his red rescue buoy strapped across his lap. They are three women in thick one-piece suits. The pocked texture on their upper thighs is visible from fifty feet. They hold hands like girls and jump, shrieking, and Terrence holds his breath with them until all three surface, blissfully unaware of the risks they take when they place their blind faith in that water.

There is a poetry to the wasted life, but little beauty. The poetry to an empty bed is beauty, Charles recognizes, and there is a poetry to the second hand on a clock, which is a kind of beauty, but the only beauty in the wasted life is of efficiency, and grace, and a complete knowledge of a small portion of the world. Charles recognizes the grace of a trip to the store. He feels the efficiency in slipping the same type of milk into the same place in the refrigerator door, between the pickles and the mayonnaise. Charles accepts the knowledge of the second hand.

Remain Healthy All Day: Drink a spoonful of oil every morning. Reach up with your arms and extend your body to its full height. Use a warm towel to dry the cat. Consider a philosophical idea larger than your area of expertise. Avoid getting cancer. Chalk up bad decisions to outside influences. Don’t take your father too seriously. Play a game where you close your eyes very tightly, and when you open your eyes, you have amnesia and you must draw the details of your life from your surroundings. Give up smoking, drinking, and poetic verse. Remind yourself how important you are to your friends or at least your animals. Wax the floor in socks. Enter into a healthy, monogamous relationship. Consider briefly the idea of a soulmate. Light an entire box of matches and throw it into the sink. Hold a metal rod to the heavens and beg for whatever comes next.

In the event that Reginald caught her on her way out, Olivia had prepared a speech:

Don’t think for an instant that you’ve escaped detection. I saw you looking at those advertisements for used bookshelves like we had in college. I saw you examining the bottom shelf at the liquor store for scotch in a plastic jug. You will not get us ejected from the theater with your rowdiness. You will not shave your beard and hide my brassieres. You will not cause mischief at the furniture store, and come home worried that they’ll take your job. You’re the owner, for heaven’s sake. If you would like to reclaim your youth, sleep with a sales girl and buy another car. It pains me to see you this way, and it makes me tired.

He slept through her exit. When she returned, he was still asleep. She woke him and helped him prepare for his bath.

Charles knew what that look meant. It meant that Doreen disapproved and was playing at being offended, but if the line of inquiry continued, she would actually be offended. She had leveled that look at him in kitchens, crowded bars, in the game rooms of friends’ houses. Charles couldn’t get away from it. He could charter a plane, fly to an empty continent and wade ashore, only to find Doreen standing there, holding the guts of his plane’s navigational system like some righteous nun, giving him that look.

Hazel and Tess each bought a flavored water and sat on the stoop in front of the market.

Tess was talking about the previous night, her first date with a man named Wallace. “We talked about flying,” she said.

“And he’s afraid of it, too?”

“Not at all. And his parents were both in crashes.”

“That doesn’t bother him?”

“They called and said, ‘Hey, buddy, we’re in Costa Rica, and guess what just happened.’”

Hazel took a long drink of water. “Weird,” she said.

“He loves his parents, of course.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“He made sure to mention that he loves his parents. They called from Costa Rica, and he wouldn’t have known otherwise, since it wasn’t on the news. Everyone was okay.”

“You mean, everyone survived? No fatalities?”

“Everyone walked away, except one stewardess who burned her foot on the fuselage.”

“That’s different, then.”

Tess got up and tossed her empty bottle into the garbage. “It was a crash,” she said. “People could have perished. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Don’t take that tone,” Hazel said, standing.

Good morning, John Mayer Concert Tee! I’m happy to see you survived the night. I know that I said my vespers before I pulled the covers up over my lips and nose to minimize the mosquito exposure. I looked to my dresser in the dark and added a silent refrain that you, John Mayer Concert Tee, would emerge, unscathed, from that land of broken windows. That your soft-pilled black poly blend, proudly emblazoned with the two-tone visage of Mr. Mayer himself, would not be spirited away. It is morning, John Mayer Concert Tee. I have a series of problems that cannot be solved.

The neighbors were fighting in the street again, really screaming this time, and Simon was writing it all down.

“I’m worried they’ll wake the baby,” Betty said. “You think you’re the next Carver.”

“Yes, that’s what I think.” He was lying belly-down on the bed with his head halfway out the window like he was about to take a flying leap, like he was Superman.

“Superman would go out and save them. Carver, too.”

“Carver wouldn’t get up to sharpen a pencil,” Simon said. “He’d get a good woman to do it. And Superman would recognize that that girl out there is holding her own well enough and doesn’t require saving.”

“He’s screaming at her.”

“She’s translating his language.”

“I’d call the police if you started screaming at me.”

Simon shrugged, writing. “Different language,” he said. “Lost in translation.”

“Bill Murray’d save her, too.”

The neighbors stopped fighting so abruptly that Simon and Betty both leaned toward the window.

From the silence, Simon: “Bill Murray’d save her eight bucks and tell her how Superman ends.”

June was the kind of woman who not only talked to her cats, but consulted them seriously about world affairs and life changes. Mister Pickles, she would say in that adorable voice women reserve for their cats and when they want a large favor performed, Mister Pickles, what is your opinion on the recent World Bank shake-up? Do you feel that man should be fired? All he wanted to do was to make his girlfriend happy . The cat would look up at her, thinking for one wild moment that the tendrils of hair around her face were lizard tails.

The girls, for all their tea-time advice, were each unhappy in their own relationships. Missy and her new husband fought constantly, and Chastity had left the father of her child to go on a spiritual journey. Frances had no prospects and a house full of fleas. She scratched a flea bite on her ankle with the heel of her shoe.