15/30: social media and friendships

Verily I say unto you:
We live in some technological times.
Social media - a phrase
nobody had even heard a few years ago -
is now this Thing, this whole business -
the internet is fucking weird, y'all.
Point to the internet on the map.
Tell me what color it is, what shape,
how much does it weigh, how does it feel
to the touch?  It isn't even real, it's
ones and zeros and electricity and wires
and what would we do, at this point,
all of us, if they took it away?

And now, because of it, friendships
don't have to fade.  We cling to them
like the wisps of so many dreams upon waking,
trying to keep hold even as they slip
through our fingers.
My friends have children
that I've never met, and yet
I saw their first steps, haircuts, saw them fresh
from the oven without ever going near
a hospital.  Jeff and his family, who gave me
sunshine in the tundra, and I've seen their engagements,
weddings, children, but haven't been to visit
in years.  This friend with whom I wrote songs
is still playing with his brother and father,
their perfect patchwork family making music
together for us all.  Linda who lives
on a mountain and before her mother died
had four generations of women up there.
Linda who grows her own vegetables, takes walks
in the sunshine in the woods with her dogs, Linda
who, with her daughter and granddaughter, hold
a piece of my heart on a shelf, will I ever
scale that summit again?  And Melissa, sweet
Melissa, who saved me in Mexico, kept
my dry heart beating, shared food, shared dances
shared stories of lovers, shared drink and smoke,
my sister, my love, and I think of her and there's a wisp
of a memory I'm grasping tight, refusing to let go,
the day we went to the grocery and bought
bocadillos, tomatoes, meat and cheese and they forgot
to charge us for the carafe of wine cheap to some
but a splurge for us and we made sandwiches
in her sunshine apartment and snuck it all in
to the discount student theater and watched
a French movie with Spanish subtitles and we ate
and we drank and in that sacred moment
our friendship was forever.

10/30 O G Will

Shakespeare doesn’t give a flying fuck

if you like his sunglasses.  Doesn’t care.  Wears them

cuz he wants to, cuz they feel good, cuz he knows

he can rock some fukkin pink.  Shakespeare

likes to wear his pink wayfarers

down to the market, lean up against a wall,

leave everyone wondering whether

he’s looking at them.  Shakespeare likes

to stare at people with his head turned away

so they’d never think, likes to dissect

their characters with no repercussions; this way

he can stare as long as he wants.  Shakespeare

can’t write without his sunglasses, can’t fuck

without his sunglasses, refuses to come to the door

if he can’t find them.  Shakespeare never wore that collar

until he got them sunglasses, and even then he only got it

cuz they looked baller as fuck together.  Shakespeare wore

his sunglasses to meet the queen, no lie, spent

the whole time face tilted toward her perfect shoes, his eyes

burning straight into hers, unabashed. 

Day 16/30, poem 14/30: more from the list of deaths

The Spectacular Voodoo of György Dózsa

If he had one magic, it was
to inspire, to fill, to nourish and he believed
that the self was enough, or should be, should
serve when food or clothing are in short supply,
and the rebellion, the movement, should carry
always on. Shortages
could not destroy him, losing control
of the people under his command
could not destroy him not
in a time when an order to desist
"on pain of death" meant quite simply
that, when Lords were tortured
to dying and governors and bishops impaled, he knew
he could only carry on. Capture, of course,
was eventually inevitable but the way in which
his men were starved for a week before his execution
was original. It was creative, even
honorific, the way in which he was killed
by executioners cooking bits of him, alive,
and feeding him to his hungry men, a sort
of praise, allowing him one last time
to fill, to nourish, to inspire.

((This is partially from the death list, partially from a prompt by Rachel McKibbens and partly who knows what))

10/30 in which the poet slacks off

Today was okay i guess because
i drank wine last night so i slept in
real late and i woke up a little woozy but
it was okay because it's sunday so
i didn't have to do anything, just
pee, which i did, and eat, which i did,
because Nancy came over with scallops and I
had rice so with our powers combined
we had a nice little meal while watching
a movie which helped the fact that my
mother wrote me today, the one who gave
birth to me not the one I love now, and she
was up to her same old tricks, of course,
like she could look the grand canyon right
in the eyes and make it feel guilty
for being so big, like she could stand out
in a monsoon and insist she were dry
as a bone, don't you dare tell her otherwise,
and no, at the end of today I didn't write
the poem I'd have liked to but fuck,
even G-d took a day off from creating,
so sue me, and anyway, the weather
was great.

day 7 of 30

Today ends a week of depressing poems. Someone posted (on facebook) a "Pay it Forward" for creative people - you reply to their status and they will give you something handmade, and you then must do the same for five others. I'm giving poems.

For Erica:
------------
Your mother may have told you tales
of hospitals, painful labor until dawn,
your brand-new foot slathered in black ink,
your grandmother cutting the cord.
These are all lies, of course,
and some part of you knows it. That part
remembers the dark cave wall, the breath
of the one who painted you there, remembers
the thousands of years spent waiting
until the day the woman who would become
your mother arrived and saw your image,
ancient and wild, there on the cold stone,
and she stood there, breathless, awe-struck,
and decided she had to have you. And so,
she gathered wood, lit a fire beneath you
and sang to you every day
for a full cycle of the moon until
you fell off the wall, crying with joy,
into her arms.

One day your son will come to you. He will
inform you in his infinite innocent wisdom
that he knows the stork is a lie.
When you look at him quizzically
and he will state with all the sureness of a prophet
that he knows his father brought him to you,
a giant swollen seed wrapped in butcher paper
and sheet music and together you sprouted him
in rich dark soil until he grew big enough
to love you back. You will not correct him.
You will look at him, silent and stoic and finally
you will nod, and say, "That is the way
of our people."

The bus couple story.

Here’s the thing of it. One of my most favorite things to do in this life (there’s a long list of these things, but this is pretty close to the top) is to make up stories about people I don’t know. People I just see passing by.

Another thing I really enjoy is when the bus driver is actually talking to one of the passengers. It happens very rarely. The other day, and I’ve only seen this one other time here and few few times elsewhere, a lady was actually sitting in the very front seat, holding a whole long conversation with the bus driver. They were having lots of laughs and it was precious.

At the time, I was on the bus with Cory, and I told him about how much I love it when that happened, then about how much I love to make up stories about people. And then I told him about that couple. I told him they were having a conversation catching up about all the people they knew in their little barrio – that they had known each other since preschool and had grown up together. That the guy has always had a crush on the girl, but she has no idea. Of course, some part of her knows, but she ignores it, denies it, to make things easier, but the moment she climbs on his bus every day is about the happiest he gets.

We got to our stop at that point and got off the bus. We started walking, Cory and I, to my house but the story kept going. Because he’s a guy, I said, he naturally thinks about her when he touches himself. But he only fantasizes about really sweet shit – like, about their wedding, and sneaking off to fool around in the bathroom at the reception, or about being on their honeymoon, or doing it in their kitchen of their house someday. Here’s where Cory chimed in on the story, and I like when people help me write them. Yeah, he said, after they tuck their kids in to bed. Exactly, sez I. And, sez Cory, he’s got a cat named Chi Chi.

Dude, I said. You know that means titty. Well yeah, sez Cory, but he didn’t know that when he named Chi Chi. He was in preschool so he didn’t know any better, and it was cute so his mom let him keep the name. Well then, I said, that’s the magical part of the story, because if he named Chi Chi when he was in preschool, and he’s clearly around 30 now, Chi Chi happens to be immortal. Oh no, Cory corrected me, he went off at one point, to university or military or something, and Chi Chi died, but his mom replaced her.

Ah, no, sez I. It’s even better than that. The girl went to visit mom one day, because they live in the same barrio, and she saw mom crying. Mom told her that Chi Chi had passed and she didn’t know how to tell her son. The girl told her, don’t worry, leave it to me. She then proceeded to go all over Guadalajara, looking in every vet clinic, every pet shop, every animal shelter, every alleyway until she found the perfect replacement for Chi Chi. Some part of the guy knows something happened to Chi Chi while he was away, but that part also knows the girl had something to do with whatever happened, so he doesn’t mind and just overlooks it.

That was the end of the story until Kiki came home. I told Kiki the story and she had to go and get all logical and cynical on me. Why, she interrupted, at the part about the kitchen and the babies, are they having more babies? He’s just a bus driver, he has no money, he can’t support a family, and the last thing Mexico needs is more poor babies. And why doesn’t he just ask her out?

She was right, of course, and I hated it. And I thought about how much the bus driver guy probably knows all that and hates it too. And he thinks about it a lot, because the girl doesn’t always catch his bus, sometimes she gets on a bus before or after his, depending on when she gets out of work. One day, he was really deep in these depressive thoughts, and it was one of those days when the bus gets really crowded. When the girl got on, there wasn’t room to get on in the front, so she did like many do, and got on through the back door and passed her bus fare up to the front to get her ticket passed back. He didn't know she'd gotten on.

She had been thinking about him all day that day and at first she wasn’t sure why. But as the day rolled on, she realized that he was in love with her, and always had been, and that she had always been in love with him too. She had decided to tell him that day, somehow, even if it was cloaked in some other meaning, just to say, let’s go see a movie Sunday or something. So when she got on and it was crowded, she decided she would just ride the bus until it wasn’t anymore, even if it went past her stop, so she could talk to him. But the more she looked at his face in the mirror, the more she saw how depressed he was, and she knew she was the cause of it.

And the moment they went over the bridge, the moment he broke through the barrier to drive off the edge, the moment the bus became airborne and she knew they were going to die was the happiest moment of her life. She felt more complete in that moment than she ever had before. Sublime.

22/30: The man who could rewind time.

The first thing he did
was win a whole bunch of money.
They boys at the track thought he just
"had a knack," a "good picker."
He made sure to lose at the poker tables
just often enough.

The money (it was a surprise
even though he'd heard it
a million times before) did not
buy happiness. So he met a girl.
Learned her habits well enough to rewind
and win her over. Made her love him.
It was easier than picking the
trifecta, the daily double, he knew
everything about her before they'd even met
(for the eighteenth time) and they married,
raised a family, and he did it all
just exactly right. Handled every situation
perfectly (by the eighth or ninth try),
was a model father, a perfect husband and at the end
of it all, as he lay on his deathbed,
he found himself too afraid to die.

So he went back.
Became a bank robber. An astronaut.
A famous country singer. President.
Learned kung fu, calculus, French.
Read all the books he meant to,
twice.
He still wasn't happy.

He began inventing favorite ways to die.
Driving off bridges was a fun one,
rewinding just as the front of the car
kissed the water hello. He'd play with time,
see just how far he could push it - how much
carbon monoxide he could breathe and still
go back.

Eventually he started getting confused;
surely you can imagine. When you've lived
a thousand lifetimes it must be hard to tell
which one you're living now.
It wasn't until she saw the girl he'd married
in the grocery, walking alongside another man
(one who'd won her fair and square)
with the same exact two babies they'd borne
that the real, heavy-hitting questions about life
and meaning and the nature of reality wore him down.
He ran up to her, crying, but of course
she did not know him. When he demanded
that the babies were his own, she called for the police.
When he snatched at them, tried to run,
they knocked him down. The report later said
he'd reached into his pocket and they'd thought
he had a gun, so they fired and he clean
disappeared.
There was nothing else to say.

21/30: TAL#175

Her strictly Catholic mother called her a whore
before she even knew what it meant,
how to spell it even, her mother's eyes
stabbing judgments into her back, so she did
what any kid who wants to survive a parent must do:
she lied.

Their name (she said) was McCreary, a lovely family,
the son six, the daughter five, the wife
just lovely, charming, kind and the husband
busy and important: a secret government agent,
so she couldn't give her mother the phone number,
or the address to the house where she babysat;
it was a matter of government security, of course.

They had a summer home, too, near the lake,
and she had to go with them, and her brother
went too, a good role model for the son, they said.
They spent every weekend out there, all summer long
and her mother was so pleased, her eyes now
clear, now proud, asking the most important question:
"And what do they think of me?"
She gave the only possible reply:
"They think you're wonderful."

Years later, after the McCrearys moved away
and the girl grew up, made her own family,
a real one, she confronted her mother one day,
called her out for all her wrongs, her lies,
each nail she'd hammered in and she broke down,
cried: "I did the best I could."
It was the first truth the girl could remember
being spoken between them.

The Tale of Jack's Fantastic Adventure

We had to write either two stories and one poem for my creative writing class, or one story and three poems. I've already turned in my three poems, so here came the one required story. I was at a complete loss... until I remembered my good friend Jack. We had to have plot with a complication that developed and was resolved, so that took me a little while... But here it is to share with you all...

--------------------------

-------------

When you hear his name was Jack, you will of course think you understand what that means. You'll have already become acquainted with everything that goes along with a young man named Jack: that he lives in a magical land not completely unlike our own, that he's rather unpopular, and that he must set out on a journey to find his fortune. You mustn't, however, assume you know too much about this young Jack or you'll do him and his journey a great disservice.

Jack's day began as it always had: mucking out stalls for his mother's master. Jack's mother had been born the slave of their master's father, and when that great patriarch had died he'd left everything, including Jack's entire family, to his son, who happened to be a pharaoh. This Pharaoh took particular pride in his horses, fine black Arabian steeds, some mares and some stallions but all exceedingly large. Jack gave these equines nicknames apart from the names the Pharaoh had given them, as they were all entirely too long. For example, He-who-runs-faster-than-the-rising-sun became Daybreak to Jack, and Prances-merrily-with-the-lightly-stepping-feet became Dancer. Jack would sing to the horses as he mucked out their stalls, clicking his tongue behind his teeth as he sang to provide his own percussion. He would sing about his wish to someday be free, and take his mother and the rest of his family away from the life of slavery. This singing and clicking would hypnotize both the horses and himself, so he didn't even notice the young lady watching him work until he backed into her, knocking them both into a rather unclean pile of straw.

"Merciful heavens!" exclaimed our mannerly hero, "Have I hurt you, miss?"

"Oh, woe!" moaned the beautiful flaxen-haired damsel, "Woe that I cannot be called Miss any longer! For when I awoke from my nap after spinning, I found myself married to the man who had woken me with absolutely no say in the matter! Now I am a reluctant Madam and have only just narrowly escaped from his castle as he himself was napping."

"What a shame," mused Jack, already weary of her ramblings. "Can I help you in some way, Madam…" he trailed off, searching for her name.

"Briar Rose," replied the beauty, "But my sisters have always called me Bri."

"Fabulous name," declared Jack, who indeed had a penchant for shortening names. "What brings you to my stall?"

"I know not," said Bri, "Only I know that in my weeping and wandering I found myself here and do not care to return to the man who made himself my husband. I should like to return to the kingdom of my father and mother and sisters, where I always was happy and might return to spinning flax and singing with the woodland creatures who lived there."

Jack rolled his eyes. He'd run across ladies like this before, as a slave, and his opinion of their shallowness and vanities was similar to his opinion of the material that dirtied the straw into which they had fallen. Thinking of this he realized they were still lying in the mess, so he hopped up and offered Bri his hand, realizing as he did so that even though his opinion of her might not be grand, his slave upbringing required that he help the princess. If she wished for Jack to return her to her native land, as she had so clearly just stated in her high-context Princess way, then Jack would surely have to get her there whether or not he was bound to work for the Pharaoh. He would have to consult his good friend John, and said as much aloud: "I'll have to talk to John."

After he had finished cleaning the stalls and hidden the Princess in with Frenchie, or as Pharaoh called her, Mare-who-prefers-to-dine-upon-crusty-breads-and-stinky-cheeses, and after he'd had supper with his mother and watched the moon rise, Jack listened for the area to quiet before sneaking out of bed. He crept through the pathways between the slave's huts, tiptoeing and ducking out of any light, until he came to the place where he knew John would still be awake and working steadily: the smith shop. Sure enough, as Jack rounded the last corner and stood before the door, the clanging of hammer on anvil could still be heard.

"John Henry!" shouted our handsome hero over the din, "John Henry, it's me!" Jack hated to distract his friend from his work – he usually loved to sit and watch the tall, strong man manipulating his metals, beads of sweat rolling down his perfect ebony skin. He'd spent many evenings listening to the music of the metals, smelling the different flavors of each one as they burned.

John looked up and laughed, "Jack, you should be in bed! What on earth has you up and about at this hour?"

"A girl," admitted Jack, reluctantly. "A princess needs my help to get home. I can't figure how to help her without getting my mother beaten or worse when I leave. And we'll need horses for the journey, of course, which I don't have, and food as well. I don't mean to burden you with my worries, friend. You're just such a great thinker, so I came to you for ideas."

"Well it's funny you should say," John chuckled. "It just so happens I've been working on a little something in case… well, just look!"

John Henry stepped over to a dark corner of the shop where a curtain hung. As he drew it back, Jack gasped at what he saw. He thought surely he was looking in a mirror, but saw neither glass nor frame. There stood a second Jack, a copy of himself, life-like and perfect!

"I've been hearing you think about leaving this place for some time, Jack. I don't reckon anything should stand in your way," explained John Henry, "not no Pharaoh, not nobody. I started working on this some time ago, melting my metals in just the right mixtures to make this here clockwork-Jack. He'll walk around and do your tasks and even reply when spoken to. No one has to know you're gone if you don't want them to, Jack. I'll wind him up in the morning and every morning until you return."

Jack couldn't speak. He jumped up and threw his arms around John Henry's neck, grinning like a kid with a frog, and hugged him as tight as he could. John just laughed in his deep, bronze-bell-ringing way, and when Jack let go he went on. "My cousin Foxy can help you, she lives just outside of town in a house you can't miss. But you'll have to give her something if you want her to help you; she's not the kind of woman you can just mess around." With this he handed Jack a small wrapped package.

Jack wasted no time. He scurried back to the stalls, grabbed Bri by the arm, and they set off, running as quickly as they could. Before long they found themselves outside a strange hut, illuminated by many funky colors, with music coming out sounding like nothing he'd ever heard. Jack, always a bright young man, deduced that this had to be Foxy's house, so he knocked loudly.

The door opened and there stood the most stunning black woman Jack had ever seen, with hair teased out as wide and tall as the doorframe. "Foxy," she said, extending her hand in a manner that indicated she didn't intend for it to be shaken, but rather kissed. "Foxy Brown. Whatchou want?"
Jack took the hand, bowed, kissed it, and said "I'm Jack, and this is Bri—"

"PRINCESS Briar Rose," interjected Bri, clearly threatened by the cool lady's badness and making no attempt to acknowledge the outstretched hand. "Charmed, I'm sure."

"John Henry sent us," explained Jack quickly, "He said you could help us get prepared for a journey it seems we must be on."

"Well y'all can come on in and sit down if he sent you," cooed Foxy, indicating a curiously fuzzy couch of no color Jack had ever seen. Foxy sat down across from them in a chair that looked more like a swing, staring at them in a way that reminded Jack of the way a panther stares at its prey. Jack remembered the package suddenly and jumped up.

"Oh, Ms. Brown, I do apologize for not remembering right away, but you see I was just so distracted by your amazing ways. John sent us with this gift for you." He handed Foxy the package which she gleefully tore open to reveal two large golden hoops.

"Ooo-wee!" she squealed as she threaded them into her earlobes. "I'll never take them off! Shoot, let me get y'all something to eat for the road!"

After she returned with a large basket full of food, she began to scratch the back of her beautiful hair. "Now I know I got something in here for ya if I can just… there." And with that, she pulled her hand back down, holding a small pistol. "You'll need this," she said. "There's some real bad characters out there, you know."

"I was wondering if you might know where we could get a horse," asked Jack politely. "I think we have a long way to go."

"Don't worry, baby," said Foxy, cool as a cucumber, "I got just the thing." She stood and beckoned for them to follow, which they did as if hypnotized. They were led to a back door which Foxy opened. Stepping out, she gestured proudly and announced, "1973 Dodge Charger, babies, the best car you could ever hope for, and she's got two-hundred-and-eighty horses up under her hood. Handles like a dream." Jack could distinctly see the love in her eyes as she said it. She tossed him the keys and said, "Now get going, you two, before I change my mind. Head north and look for my friend Alexander. He knows his way around all these parts, he'll be able to get you on the right path."

Jack and Bri climbed in the Charger (which Jack suspected the Pharaoh might call Steed-that-rushes-unceasingly-onward) with their basket of food. Jack managed to get it started on the first try, shifted naturally into drive, and put his foot on what seemed to be the most sensible pedal: he was born to drive that Charger. He judged north by the rising sun and as he swerved in the right direction, Bri slid across the bench seat and into his side.

"Oh, excuse me, good sir," she said, giggling unnecessarily. Jack started to roll his eyes and then caught himself. He'd never had a girl at his side before, so he decided to let her stay, if only to see how it felt. Before long she was asleep on his shoulder as he soldiered on.

By midday they rolled up on an intense battle scene. Not wanting to get mixed up in the fray, Jack parked under an olive tree for a nap of his own and passed out directly. He awoke to a tapping on his window, and Bri jerked awake as well. He rubbed his eyes and the tapper came into focus: a white man with a large nose and a metal cap with feathers on top stood before the window, brandishing a large shield and a sword which he used to tap on the window again.

"We're awake!" Jack shouted, starting to roll down the window. Then, as he took a second look at the sword being used to tap on the window, he thought better of it and opened the door wide, forcing the soldier back as he stepped out.

"What business do you have in these parts?" asked the soldier loudly. "What brings you to the battlefield of the Great Alexander?"

Bri pushed forward and out of the Charger. "I am the Princess Briar Rose, and this is my servant-boy Jack." Jack suddenly felt quite cool toward the girl who had been warming his shoulder so recently, but kept quiet. "I demand an audience with your Great Alexander."

The soldier kneeled briefly before standing to bark, "Follow me," then turned and began to march briskly away. Jack and Bri nearly tripped over themselves trying to keep up as he weaved in and out of the many pitched tents. The two youths had never seen anything like the camp before: in this tent, a man sharpened his sword, at the next, one polished his shield. One tent had amazing smells coming out of it as a soldier cooked his dinner of lamb, while at the next they could already hear snores. Before long they found themselves standing outside the largest of the tents. Their guide pulled back a curtain and announced, "The Princess Briar Rose requests an audience of your Greatness, Alexander, King of Asia!"

The handsome blond man on the throne beckoned for them to enter and they did, trying not to stare at the amazing sights around them. Beautiful women played stringed instruments, sang, and danced around the man on the throne. Warriors sat, grunting and planning the next day's battle. Servants cooked food for the king, who sat in the midst of it all seeming not to care one bit about any of it. Unphased, the princess walked right up to him and curtseyed. "I am the Princess Briar Rose," she said proudly, "of the kingdom of Perrault, noble in lineage of my father and my mother. I require assistance in the form of guidance to return to my home and my people who are no doubt missing me at this very moment."

The young king seemed unimpressed. "And I," he replied lazily, "am Alexander. The Great. I require assistance in slaying a horrible monster that appears to have no weakness. Help me with that, noble Princess, and I shall tell you exactly where to find your kingdom, as I have knowledge of all of these lands."

The princess blinked once, then twice, and seemed to be entirely speechless. Jack, knowing her type well, understood: she simply wasn't used to being bargained with, or having demands made of her. He stepped forward. "Noble King, perhaps I can help also. Could you tell us more of this monster?"

Alexander sighed and allowed his crown to slip from his head. "It's big," he stated, "and slimy, and terrorizes locals, and doesn't seem to want to leave the lake it's in, Loch Ness. The oracles have told us to entice it with food, but it's uninterested in any food we have to offer."

"Aha!" exclaimed Jack. "It just so happens that we come bearing food from a foreign land, cooked by a woman of great skill and badness! Perhaps we could try it and see what happens?"

Alexander sat up straight for once. "Foreign food? Yes… foreign food. It could just do the trick. You call that monster up out of the depths with your foreign food and I'll tell you how to get home, Princes. Kill it and I'll take you there myself. Now go from my tent and do not come back if you bear bad news."

They quickly backed out of the tent, bowing nonstop. As soon as they were out, Bri popped Jack in the back of the head with her open palm. "Foreign food? That's your bright idea?" The level of mockery in her voice was impossible to ignore. "You're going to conjure up some stinky, slimy, evil monster and kill it with Foxy's food?"

"No," Jack patiently replied, "you're going to conjure it up with Foxy's food. Then I'm going to shoot it."

Bri didn't take to the idea initially, but as Jack explained it was their only hope of finding her home, she eventually came around. They went back to the Charger, got the picnic basket, and edged up to the lake. Jack positioned himself and his shooter just out of sight while Bri laid the food out, talking all the while.

"Mmm, ham salad sandwiches! How delicious! And with pimento, too!" She was doing a pretty good job of hiding the fear in her voice. "And deviled eggs, my favorite! Ooh, pineapple salad, how lovely! Mmm, smell that sweet tea!" Bubbles were starting to appear in the lake. "Pickles, too, homemade and crispy! Wow, get a load of these thick kettle potato chips!" A snout peeked up over the water, followed by two murky eyes. "Golly, is that … it is! A whole tray of fudge brownies!" That was enough for the monster, which reared up and came charging up the bank of the lake. Bri stood fast, uncharacteristically brave, and Jack jumped up to fire three shots perfectly into the monster's skull. It collapsed on the beach just short of the picnic.

Jack strutted up like a true hero. "You know," he said just as cool as you please, "seems a shame to let all this good food go to waste, and I know I haven't eaten all day. Lady, would you deign to dine with me?"

"Oh, Jack! I'd love to!" squealed Bri, and together they sat down to devour the goodies Foxy had prepared for them.

Just as the moon was high overhead they strolled back to Alexander's tent. Jack threw back the tent-flap and said proudly, "Hey, Alex, I got your monster. I got your monster good."

Alexander couldn't believe it. He leapt off his throne and came running to the tent-flap. "There," said Jack, and pointed to the large dark lump in the distance.

"Well I'll be," said Alexander. "Please, please, stay here in my tent tonight, and in the morning I'll happily deliver you to the kingdom of Perrault." The two found beds in the large tent and fell fast asleep, worn out from the excitement. When day broke, Alexander awoke them with breakfast and a crowd of soldiers and locals singing their praises.

"Perrault," said Alexander, "is a day's journey northwest by foot, but I daresay in your chariot you'll get there before high noon."

"Really?" shrieked Bri. "I'm that close to daddy and mommy and all of my sisters? Jack! Let's go now!" She grabbed his arm and took off toward their Charger and he was helpless to do anything but follow.
The beautiful red car glided effortlessly over the plains and before long Bri was bouncing in her seat, cheering and clapping as she recognized landmarks. Soon the castle itself appeared on the horizon and Jack felt strange to notice he wasn't anywhere as happy to see it as his companion. This would mean their journey was at an end, and while he would have succeeded in returning the princess like he'd promised, he'd still have to go back to work for the Pharaoh, back to his life as a slave, watching his poor mother toil all day long. Nevertheless, he was a man on a mission, and he kept the pedal to the floor until they arrived at the moat.

"Who goes there?" hollered a guard from a parapet.

"It's me!" chirped Bri. "Bri! I'm back!"

The drawbridge dropped with a thud and a commotion could be heard inside the castle. Just as Bri was bounding across it, Jack trailing behind, her father the King appeared inside the archway with his arms spread wide.

"Briar Rose, my darling! Welcome home!" he boomed in his kingly voice. "And who is this young man with you?"

"Oh, that's Jack. I found him on my way here, he helped a little."

"Son," said the king, "if I know my daughter, then I'm quite sure she's underestimating what you did. Why don't you tell me about it?"

Jack had made it across the drawbridge by then, and told the king about everything: hiding the Princess away from the Pharaoh, John Henry's clockwork-switcheroo, Foxy Brown's gifts, Alexander's orders, and his own valiant conquest of the monster of Ness. He told it humbly, but he told the truth, and the king was quite impressed.

"It's my kingly duty," he said, "to offer you half my kingdom, my daughter as your bride, and as much fortune as you can carry with you!" At this, Bri batted her eyes coyly at Jack.

Jack paused and thought. He reflected on how it had felt to have Bri at his side in the seat of the charger. He thought about their dinner date on the edge of the lake after he'd saved her from the monster. Then he thought about her ramblings, her airs, and her silliness.

"If it's all the same to you," he said, bowing, "I'll just take the fortune."

Bri actually gasped out loud. The king was startled but quickly hid it. "Well," he said, trying to save some face, "it just so happens that we have a family of spinsters here. Bri's sister has learned to spin straw into gold here lately, and you can take as much of that as you can carry with you. Do try and be quick now." He gestured to a guard and said, "Lead him to the rooms!"

Jack was led to three rooms filled with golden thread. He carried load after load until his 1973 Dodge Charger was filled with the stuff, bowed in thanks to the king, gave the princess a quick peck on the cheek, then climbed in and drove off into the sunset. He was going to buy his freedom, his mother's freedom, his family's freedom, and John Henry's freedom and build them all houses in the woods next to Foxy's, the baddest lady he'd ever met and to whom he intended to propose, and they could all live happily ever after.