Edmond Manning's Blog, page 6

I resolve, I resolve, I say each January, trying to think forward to next December’s short cold days, a distant mirror.

Will I honor these resolutions come December?

Are they worth a year’s devotion?

Will they change me? Will I allow myself to be changed?

Or are they destined to become discarded, New Year’s party favors like funny hats and horns that unfurl? Will I find these resolutions balled up in the garbage come February and with distain say, “Oh, you. I remember.”

Dunno.

I might.

I love the drama of New Year’s resolutions.

I love the promise of renewal, that I might grow better at being me.

And buried deep in each promise, the dark wriggling worm of betrayal, allowing myself to forget and discard what I value.

2014: renewal or betrayal?

Like salmon swimming upstream each year, resolutions return, leaping gracefully from icy blue water, suggesting growing inner strength, a capacity for greater love, for living with less struggle and more fight. New Year’s Eve, I wade into this frigid stream, a shaggy bear swiping at resolutions, catching some in my meaty paw, delighting to feel them wriggle me alive.

So I resolve, resolve, resolve.

Cook more, say two delicious inventions per week. (More than sandwiches, more than microwaving.)

I will call mom twice a week and thank her for those home cooked meals I now miss dearly.

I will grill, steam, and gnaw vegetables more than last year. Don’t ask me to quantify “more.” We all know what that means.

I will befriend cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and maybe even vegetable smoothies for breakfast, wait–I’m not sure about smoothies. Let’s not make that a resolution, let’s call it a 2014 possibility. I’d rather jog naked around Lake Harriet in January than eat kale whipped into breakfast froth.

I will try to be open. I will try.

Some resolutions must be uncovered, discovered. I resolve to avoid roping every possibility into convoluted knots. I resolve to be open to new things, like kale smoothies, though I may end up barfing.

To start more arguments if I think they will strengthen friendships.

Write more.

Throw away more junk, both in my home and in my head, useless, obscure shapes that do not serve.

Read more.

And when I resolve to lose thirty-five pounds, I skip last year’s failures and shame  to better steel my gaze toward this year’s success, the possibility, hell, probability that I will succeed. One of the things I love best about me is my ridiculous faith. I will use this tired ol’ weight-loss resolution to cultivate ridiculous faith, my optimism, to stretch the boundaries of my power. I may not lose thirty-five pounds. But I will cultivate my faith in myself and I will learn from past mistakes.

Hell, I may lose fifty pounds.

Only next year’s December knows at this point and we are not yet in communication.

One day this summer, I will watch a butterfly for fifteen minutes to study its flight and wonder about it’s airborn life.

Speaking of, I resolve to get interrupted for things more important than me. I resolve to use this interruption to remember there are lots of people and events more important than me. I will do this twelve times, once a month. Who knows? Maybe more. There are many people and events more important than me.

Ride my bike 10 times this summer to feel chill breezes and the green blur whiz past me.

I resolve to make time for ten October walks in the woods. My favorite month. I resolve to gift these ten walks to myself.

I resolve to surprise myself at least five times.

I resolve to say internally “I can’t believe I just did that.”

Say, four times.

I resolve to create opportunities for me to win with myself so I can say the words, “Beautiful job, Edmond. You’re doing your best.”

Three times, I will listen to someone outline my faults and I will say “thank you” instead of arguing why they’re wrong. If I am brave that day I will ask follow-up questions, promising to give careful consideration to what has been said. I will assume they have insight which blinds me. They might be wrong. But I will listen first and decide later.

I resolve to wear my pants less.

I resolve to sleep more.

I resolve to sleep less and use that time writing.

I resolve to look at the contradictions in my life, which is really all a New Year’s resolution is, a promise to examine contradictions, our personal absurdities and say, “Huh. Look at me.”

To celebrate my contradictions, I think the best way to stratify and organize my bulleted New Year’s resolutions is in poetry. Something ethereal and silly, solid and sing-song, over-long and easily forgotten but using dancing words that zip around my candy cane consciousness.

To remember these resolutions and zipper them up inside me.

This, I resolve.

To celebrate my new book, I Probably Shouldn’t Have Done That (Kindle version here), I decided to showcase a few of the blog entries you’ll find in this book.

I hope you enjoy my stroll down memory lane.

***

Dear Penthouse,

As a chubby teen, I was introduced to your letter column through a high school friend’s sleepover. He titillated our boys club by showing us his father’s stash. We poured over them. The other boys were mesmerized by all the pictures of women spreading their legs.

I was mesmerized by the naughty cartoons and also the letters written by men who experienced surprising seductions. I loved those masculine, sexy letters. I ignored the photos and devoured how the men felt, the raw pleasure of seduction and getting sex delivered so easily, like pizza. Well, sometimes literally through a pizza delivery woman. Later, as the other boys moved to another room to play Atari video games, I remained behind, reading your letters, studying them. So I know exactly how to begin.

Dear Penthouse, this kind of situation doesn’t ever happen to me. (I nailed it, right?) I’m not the guy who gets hit on at parties. I’m the guy you ask, “Dude, where’s the beer?” Hot neighbors don’t wash their Corvettes in tight jeans cutoffs for me and I’ve never had a voluptuous male tutor make sexy double entendres while I was labored over Italian vocabulary. Mostly my tutors spent their energy suppressing frustration because my brain refused verb conjugation.

Penthouse letters are traditionally crammed full of clichés, so allow me to say you could have knocked me over with a feather when my own Penthouse experience showed up at my front door one weeknight after 10 p.m. The pounding roused me from writing in my den, which was the first irritation and as I crossed to the front of the house, I couldn’t help but complain. My porch light and living room lights were already off. Who ignores those obvious signs?

Grumble, grumble.

The pounding resumed a second time, already impatient with me.

I was not amused.

I peered through glass planes like the crabby ass I felt myself to be and was surprised to see Mike. He was one of three twenty-somethings renting the house next door. His two housemates, both women, were bubbly and friendly to me, contrasting his surliness. Maybe they were compensating. I knew he was a homo the day I met him. Shaking hands, he looked at me and his entire face wrinkled into mild disgust, as if to communicate, Ugh. Bear.

Mike dressed casually but with great attention to detail and he affected a beard which looked scraggly on him in his post-twink era. His hair bristled with chemical product and always remained sculpted to look as if it were not. The modern word best describing Mike is hipster but back in the mid-2000s, we had not yet dreamt up that new-fangled vernacular to define someone who tries hard to make you believe he doesn’t care about his appearance. Mike himself would boast he was a hipster before it was cool.

His cheerful housemates and I would sometimes gab if we came home at the same time, twelve-sentence conversations as we lugged our gym bags and groceries to our front doors. Mike never said more than hello and sometimes only shot me a grim nod if he could not avoid eye contact. No problem. Not everybody has to be chat buddies in the front yard but since he had never come to my home in the two years living next door, I was mighty alarmed to find him standing on my front porch.

When I opened the door, he said, “You know, we’ve never really gotten to know each other as neighbors.”

I said, “No, I guess not.”

For him, that must have translated into, Well then, come the fuck in, because that’s what he did, sailing across the threshold and squeezing past me, clearly propelled forward by the thick alcohol cloud surrounding him. I thought I might get wasted by proxy.

He dropped on my living room couch, the big one, and I sat across from him, a three-by-four-foot oak coffee table between us. I briefly wondered if this could be a booty call but that seemed absurd as he made it a habit to scowl at me. He had probably locked himself out and needed to waste a half hour before a housemate came home. If he had just glared at me and said, “Look, I’m locked out. Can I crash here until my roommate gets home?” that would have been fine. In fact, I would have preferred the honesty.

Mike asked, “Got anything to drink?”

I tried to hide my annoyance when I said, “I’ll check.”

My kitchen was a disaster, dirty dishes everywhere and leftover carnage from dinner suggesting I’m not the kind of person who uses my hands to open packages and move things around. While I take pleasure in believing I’m a free spirit who doesn’t mind if my household is cluttered and dirty when friends spontaneously visit, sorry, I’m really not. I do not appreciate chicken gravy on most flat kitchen surfaces and scum-riddled plates piling up like a high-rise buffet for rats. In moments like this, I hear my mother’s voice say, “That’s why we make our bed every morning and do the dishes after each meal, because you never know who may drop by.”

I don’t think she anticipated booty calls, however.

Of course, Mike strolled into the mess right behind me and when he (deliberately?) brushed against me, I inhaled a full shot glass of whiskey breath or something of equivalent proof. He nodded at the vodka sitting on top of my fridge and noted it would serve fine. (I store my hard liquor on top the fridge. Mine is not the classiest house even when it’s clean.)

I grumbled while I found us clean glasses, wondering how long this stupid seduction would take. If it were that. I still wasn’t sure.

It sucks when you’re getting your Penthouse experience, the young neighbor almost twenty years your junior appearing suddenly for a booty call, and all you can think is God, I am turning into my mother.

When we returned to the Mission-style couches in my cozy Minneapolis bungalow, I sat where he was not so he moved and joined me on my couch. He sat very, very close and asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Yup. Booty call.

“Yes, I do,” I said right away. “It’s not an open relationship.”

He frowned. “Oh. I never see him.”

“We mostly sleep at his place.”

As I scooched a few inches away, keeping a more appropriate distance between us, I elaborated. The relationship was fairly new, that delicate stage where no one uttered the word monogamy, but wouldn’t it feel great if we both shared that shy desire? Wouldn’t the timing be nice? I told a sweet tale of my new boyfriend and our potential for being each other’s one true love.

None of it was true. I was very, very single and actually lacking in amorous adventures of late (which is a classy way of saying I was horny).

But when Mike switched couches and I felt the heat of his body as he dropped next to me, I had decided no way and instantly lies poured from my mouth regarding this newish romance while my brain screamed, “For God’s sake, don’t give him a fake name! You’ll never remember it.”

“Things are good right now between him and me,” I said, purring. “Who knows where it will go. You dating anyone?”

“No,” he said staring into my eyes, “Single.”

He moved his hand to massage the back of my neck.

This moment, my lie, was one of those questionable decisions a person makes in life. Why didn’t I go for it? We were both single, he was attractive, just sort of scornful and pretentious. I didn’t like him as a person but he wasn’t proposing six hours of conversation. Why did I invent this big lie? Why not just get laid, consequences be damned?

I removed his massaging hand and realized I truly didn’t want this, not with him. Maybe there comes a point in your life where respecting yourself finally overtakes the need for carnival sex. Maybe. I’m a big fan of carnival sex. I got my hand stamped so I can come back anytime. But I don’t spend my every waking moment wondering about who might be next or thinking about what we might try.

“I’d like to see your house,” he said, “see how it compares to ours.”

The rest of my house wasn’t much cleaner than the food-splattered kitchen, so he wasn’t winning any points with me by demanding to see every room in its natural state. But I wanted us off the romantic couch so I walked him room to room. When we headed through the kitchen toward the sun porch he embraced me from behind and kissed me on the neck.

I froze. Why the kitchen? Couldn’t he see the mess? The chicken gravy? I couldn’t possibly make out with all those dirty dishes mocking me from a foot away.

“I know you want me,” he whispered in sloppy dramatic seduction. “I see you watching me from your house. From your kitchen you can see right into my bedroom.”

I extracted myself and said, “Mike, I don’t even know which room is yours. I’ve never been in your house to know that.”

He pointed to his window and said, “That one. I know you watch me undress. I see you standing right here.”

I pondered this and said, “Huh.”

I had never watched him undress. I really didn’t know which room was his. But I knew why he would think I might have. Mike wasn’t entirely wrong. I did spend a lot of time in this spot, just not for the reason he suspected.

I decided to tell the truth. Another questionable decision.

“Thing is,” I said and I probably blushed a little, “we’re right in front of the refrigerator. I spend a lot of time at the fridge with the door open. Standing right here.”

That was humiliating.

It can be hard to tell your embarrassing truths, like why I spend so much time in front of the fridge debating meal options, or why I am single. Well-meaning friends frequently ask with loving concern why I’m still single, and while my defenses can offer a variety of reasons from “I’m not putting myself out there” to “I’m concentrating on my writing these days,” sometimes the truth is “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really know.”

He tried to kiss me again and I said, “No. No, Mike.”

Man, this Penthouse letter sucked.

We continued the house tour and now that it seemed apparent he wasn’t getting laid, he didn’t fake being impressed by each room. In the den he looked at my festive Christmas lights wrapping a house plant and said with disdain, “Oh. So tacky.”

After we concluded the downstairs, the only part of my house tour available to the visiting public, he strode past me in the dining room and asked, “What’s up here?”

He disappeared up the narrow staircase into my master bedroom.

I followed, not liking where this was headed symbolically or literally. I was sure my imaginary boyfriend would raise his eyebrow when I repeated this part of the story, doubting for a moment whether we were truly heading toward the monogamous thing after all. Thank God, I did not give the imaginary boyfriend a name. I’d never remember it.

I found what I expected to find, underwear and shirts on the floor, comic books strewn about, pomegranate-striped sheets rumpled at the foot of my bed, my pillows slammed and drooping against far walls as if my sleep violence ought to be studied in a lab.

There he was, lying on my unmade bed, flipping through a comic book.

And this is why we make our bed every morning.

The cupboard door to my secret stash of unread comics stood wide open and he had reached in, grabbed a random book. He wore his natural state of disdain on his face, flipping through the colored pages.

My blood hardened in its veins. You don’t fuck with a nerd’s comics, dude. Not cool.

“C’mon,” I said with forced good cheer, “I still haven’t shown you the basement.”

When my tour completed its run and I walked us to the front door, he resisted and flopped onto my living room couch again for one final attempt at seduction. He patted the seat next to him and I murmured, “My boyfriend.”

In a bored voice he asked me what I did for fun and I said, “I write.”

He said, “Me too. I’m a blogger.”

This became the only I’ll show you mine if you show me yours moment of the night, for we each whipped out our home pages on my laptop and ogled them, right there on the oak coffee table. As expected, he saw my homepage and said, “Yeah, that’s nice. Here’s mine.”

I never expected any real interest from him. I was a booty call.

“I’m new to blogging,” he confessed.

His blog had two entries on it, only two, and both began with rants against junk food manufacturers and their stupidity. His written attitude was a mixture of confidence-without-facts and everyone-is-stupid, so while he explained his theme for colors and layout, I grew more irritated with him and felt a resolve in myself to get rid of him within the next five minutes.

“I’m anorexic,” Mike said. “Well, recovering anorexic. Not many men get diagnosed with anorexia compared to women, so I felt my voice needed to be out there.”

I looked at his blog posts again and instead of seeing smug confidence I saw a defiant, wounded man still struggling to succeed. When you uncover a vulnerable dimension to a late-night booty call, it’s suddenly harder to think of him exclusively as a booze-guzzling jerk.

I listened to him describe his relationship with food and I told him he was brave, which he was, and he responded with a knowing smile to suggest, Yeah, I really am. Okay, I still didn’t like him. But I could appreciate before me I beheld a man on a journey, same as me.

Dear Penthouse, I sent Mike home a few minutes later after he suggested my imaginary boyfriend never had to know about this. Mike let me know we didn’t have to do everything, but maybe just some things. I made sure he crossed safely to his own front door and made a mental note to spend less time at the fridge. Jesus, what if he gave me a deliberate striptease while I was salivating over leftover lasagna?

The next morning after the Penthouse seduction, the UPS man asked if I could sign for an important package for my female next-door neighbors. Working from home as I did, my signing for neighbor packages was not unusual. I left a note taped to their front door to come over.

I considered he might be the one to come, but the odds were against it. Besides, it might be healing for both of us to acknowledge the previous night’s awkwardness, laugh about it, get it out there, and—crap. I couldn’t remember if I had assigned my imaginary boyfriend a name. I hoped not. I hope I had taken my own advice, but I don’t always listen to the voice inside me which says, “Not a good idea.”

Two hours later, I recognized Mike’s impatient pounding on the front door, like a British soldier checking American homes during the Revolutionary War.

I opened the screen door wide so he could enter and in a sheepish voice, I said, “Hi.”

He took the package from my hand and flashed me the familiar scorn: Ugh. Bear.

In a bored voice he said, “Thanks for signing for this.”

Mike turned and plopped down the front steps in a casual way. Obviously, last night’s rejection did not scar him.

That was it. That was the end of our rich, meaningful relationship. A year later, he moved away.

Dear Penthouse, nothing happened.

Okay, well, not technically true. The prior night, we made out for a minute by my front door as I was sending him home, but then I whispered, “I can’t. The boyfriend,” and kicked him out.

What? Don’t judge me.

I’m not made of stone and this was probably going to be my only Penthouse experience.

To celebrate my new book, I Probably Shouldn’t Have Done That (Kindle version here), I decided to showcase a few of the blog entries you’ll find in this book.

I hope you enjoy my stroll down memory lane.

***

Despite the ominous title, this essay is rated PG-13 for strong language. No nudity. There is one furious drag queen screaming in front of a Chicago leather bar, so yes, adult situations.

Two weeks ago, on a return trip to visit family, I wandered up and down Chicago’s Halsted Street, lost in reminiscing. I remembered dining at that narrow but long restaurant when it was Italian and not a French/Vietnamese cafe. I hung out a few times in that cruddy little bar when it proudly bore the name of the previous bar owner. It was a cruddy little bar then, too. I remembered some first dates, some last dates. A couple landmarks changed over the years but The Alley and that excellent comic book shop remained, as well as the Belmont Street Dunkin’ Donuts.

Glad to see that.

I was disappointed to observe the Manhole, a raunchy leather bar, had gentrified into something classier and pastel sounding: a bar called Hydrate. Although it was never a hangout of mine, still, I missed the Manhole. One sunny afternoon, I fought the most wonderful, physically abusive, domestic argument outside that bar.

At the time I lived in a northwest suburb and on weekends volunteered for a Boystown group called the Pink Angels. In response to that late-80s take-back-the-city movement, Chicago’s Pink Angels copied other successful groups’ mission and patrolled the predominantly gay neighborhood. Pink Angels jogged down dark alleys reporting drug deals to cops, helped drunks find cabs, and ran like hell toward any cry sounding like “Help!”

It takes a unique flavor of compassion to love people this way, to race to their aid down a dark alley. Groups patrolled from about 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. For one summer, I was a member but it turns out I am chunky and there was a lot of running involved. Still, for one summer, I ran the streets of Chicago.

We wore pink T-shirts and matching berets. I thank Hercules this happened prior to phone cameras’ popularity for I did not project “sexy strong gay” in my pink beret. I was a pink-tinged, jolly cake topper you’d stick on a German chocolate cake for a child’s first communion celebration. We never engaged in true fisticuffs that summer (which is smart—some of us undoubtedly imagined West Side Story and would have been mightily surprised when our attackers did not bring tap shoes), but I felt brave among them. I felt safe.

In the heat of August, we conducted training for the new recruits. After morning workshops on walking tough, non-confrontational de-escalation and how to observe street-smart nuances, the experienced volunteers broke into small groups to enact training situations around a ten-block radius.

My assignment was to stage a domestic argument in front of the Manhole. Our training director set the scene: I was to be witnessed verbally harassing and physically intimidating my assigned boyfriend in the bar’s front entryway, screaming at him, and he would, in turn, give the appropriate signs of intimidation, subtle and skillfully done. The Pink Angels would approach and demand to know if everything was okay.

Portraying the brutish thug, I would execute my line with menacing undertones. “He’s fine. Go away.”

The Pink Angels would insist on hearing from my partner. He would respond by saying, “It’s okay,” in an unconvincing tone. They might ask again for a clearer answer. I would stand close to him, pinning my boyfriend against the Manhole’s exterior, my arm blocking a view to his face. When they reluctantly withdrew and moved a few feet away, I would give him a hearty shove, which would trigger scene two: the dramatic return and de-escalation to remove me from the man I intended to beat down.

Our roles clear, my new life partner and I looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “Sure. We can do this.”

As we walked toward the Manhole together, we exchanged names and short bio information. He lived in Chicago proper and while he expressed admiration for the greatness of Arlington Heights, he clearly looked down on me as a suburb dweller.

North Halsted was crowded, the regular Saturday flow of people living in north side Chicago, shopping, strolling, jogging, or generally fucking around under the hot August sun. The Pink Angels would not show for a few minutes, so we practiced my pushing him in a way that didn’t hurt but still looked realistic. I practiced yelling mean things. About three minutes before our patrol was due, during a faux shoving, we both jumped to hear a rich baritone voice four feet behind me.

“Oh bitch, you did not just shove that man.”

We both turned sheepishly to find a 6’2” African-American drag queen with her hands on her hips. She wore a leopard print miniskirt and had big RuPaul hair. She would claw my eyes out for not remembering her top, but I was so stunned I forgot to check out her breasts.

I was about to get my ass kicked.

“He’s fine,” I said in a pleading voice. Thinking the patrol could be here at any second, I added, “Go away.”

When she started yelling at me, threatening me, moving closer, I turned to my temporary boyfriend and said, “Tell her.”

In a completely unconvincing tone, he said, “It’s okay.”

On the plus side, we had accidentally practiced our lines and he hit the mark perfectly as unbelievable and in danger. I, on the other hand, could have used more authority in saying, “Go away.”

One or two people stopped to watch as she swore loudly. I tried to explain we represented the Pink Angels training team and could she please not let them find me spread-eagle on the sticky, scalding sidewalk with her black stiletto heel jammed into my fleshy neck. She was furious. Nervously, we did our best to persuade her.

Our furtive glances down the street in the direction of our soon-to-be-arriving patrol apparently lent more credibility than our actual words and she reluctantly agreed to step back a few feet. But she let me know she was not departing until this alleged training scenario played out and if I thought I could outrun a bitch in heels, I had another thing coming.

“Please,” I begged her. “Stand far enough away. Over there.”

She skulked away, but not far.

My partner and I got into position and we took a few deep breaths because the lady was not shy with swear words and could threaten some explicit possibilities. It takes a different kind of courage to be a Chicago drag queen.

“They’re almost here,” my faux-boyfriend said, eyes wide. “Go. Do your thing.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do you piece of shit,” I yelled in his face, jabbing a hard forefinger two inches from his eyes.

The Pink Angels appeared at my side and we played out our scene. My partner was said he was okay (unconvincingly, of course) so they reluctantly retreated. I shoved my faux-boyfriend with faux-rage. They returned and dragged me away using the proper techniques, though I had a few critique notes to pass along once we debriefed at headquarters. If anyone on the patrol team paid deeper attention, they would have noticed I was probably the more rattled of the two actors.

By the time the Pink Angels had resolved our drama and began jogging to the next scene, our drag queen had silently slipped away.

This is what I love about Chicago.

If you’re in a shop and overhear a conversation that’s not meant for your ears, chime in. It’s still your fuckin’ business. This city is where I learned to tell drunks, “Get out of my face!” and how to get seen when howling for a cab. If you think you’re gonna knock your boyfriend’s teeth out, you may have to answer to a self-policing pack of homos in matching pink berets or an African-American goddess who is not going to stand for any shit.

On the day I walked Halsted reminiscing, my fond memories from the Manhole were enough to make me want to stand at the corner of Belmont and North Clark, and, ala Mary Tyler Moore, throw a pink beret into the air screaming, “Fuck you, Chicago.”

I have no doubt someone, whether in a brownstone, at the Dunkin’ Donuts, or from the back seat of a cab, would yell back, “No, fuck you! What’s your fucking problem?”

And they’d really want to know.

Hey, guess what? I wrote a book.

It’s a book of mistakes.

Well, maybe not mistakes. Say instead, gaffes. Well, I’m not comfortable with that word either. Some of my best stories and life experiences come from taking “the road more stupid.” So I collected some of my best mistakes (many documented right here on my blog!) and put together a collection of 25 essays about strange things from my life. Included in this collection of delightful humiliations:

* My ongoing personal history with a blow-up doll named Plastiqua

* The day I spent pretending to be homeless in New York City

* How I celebrated my Moon Recession Birthday

* My very own “Dear Penthouse” experiences

* My domestic abuse fight in front of the Chicago bar known as The Manhole.

* My creepy monkey collection.

Ah, good times. Good times.

Who will enjoy this book? Well, let me see if I can give you some suggestions.

* You’re hilarious cousin you see twice a year. You’d be much closer buddies if time and distance permitted, but all the same you have a sweet connection at family gatherings, share the same weird humor.

* Your ‘naughty’ friends from college. The ones who you used to have adventures with. (Yes, I ended the sentence with a preposition. Get over it.)

* Your best friend.

* Friends who enjoy a good cry. Some stories in this are funny. Some are heartfelt.

* The friends who understand your wild side.

*A bored-reader friend. Someone who complains, ‘There’s nothing new to read out there…’

* Carl Maldenburg of Elmhurst, New Jersey. (Wow, that’s specific, isn’t it?)

With Christmas right around the corner, you can still snag a paperback copy of this book and receive it in plenty of time! In fact, here’s the link to the paperback copy of I Probably Shouldn’t Have Done That. ($9.50 for a paperback book suitable for framing? Wow. *enthusiastic crowd noises go here*)

And if you prefer the Kindle version, here you go.

Thanks for considering the purchase. You won’t regret it. Well, yes, you might. I shouldn’t lie. You might think it’s one of the worst things you ever read, tales assembled by an overweight narcissist who spends too much time looking in the car’s rear view mirror practicing his ‘surprise’ face in case he ever wins an Oscar.

Yes, now that I think about it, this is probably a terrible purchasing decision. You might better spend your dollars going to Arbys and super-sizing their Beef and Cheddar combo.

Crap.

I probably shouldn’t have said that.

I met an awesome new friend at this year’s GayRomLit conference, Jordan Castillo Price. She and I vibed right away (and I mean that in the truest sense of the hippie word–it was freaky and groovy).

She subsequently introduced me to the lovely genre of flash fiction. One writer starts the story and the other writer finishes, creating a micr0-story. I’ve never seen myself as co-authoring with another writer mostly because I’m way too picky and weird, but JCP made this experience delightful and we’re coauthoring a few more. It’s like playing tennis, but with words.

Funz!

Also, another reason to like her:  the word count was real close to 800 and she said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be an even 800 words. Exactly that number?” As someone who appreciates patterns, symbolism, and number games in writing, yes, yes it would be nice to come out so evenly. See? She’s pretty awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the 800-word story we wrote together, Cram.

***

The clock is ticking. I’m aware of each second slipping by. One by one. Relentless. Irrevocable. It’s a distant sort of awareness, like a near-death experience—at least the way they always talk about them on TV reenactments where someone’s standing by calmly watching their body hurtling down the hospital corridor on a squeaking metal gurney while people in scrubs are yelling things like, “Stat!” and “Clear!” and “We’re losing him.”

It’s the distant part of me that hears time running out. The cheers and jeers of the crowd, too, and the retching sounds off to my right. That noise signals the forfeit of one of my competitors, but there’s no time to revel in it. Not now.

I thrust my hand into the vat and come up with a great handful. Gelatin, corn syrup, a hint of fake vanilla, such innocuous little confections for such a cutthroat test of endurance and will.

Behind me, my sister Daria leans in and murmurs, “You don’t have to do this, Junior.”

Says her. She thinks she knows what’s at stake, a new coffee maker and a whole month of free groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. But Daria doesn’t know the half of it. I ignore her, ball up another marshmallow and cram it into my cheek.

I’ve lost count. I have no idea how many more I can cram inside me, these fat, milky soft cubes, well, sorta cubes, doesn’t matter, I crush them deeper, force them to stack against each other, more, then another, then another.

I can’t lose.

Time? When are they gonna call time? It’s only a ten-minute span and it seems like an hour ago we started.

I hear coughing, big coughing, and another one is out. The crowd groans collectively in empathy but quickly forget the sidelined competitor. They’re chanting down the clock. “20…19…18…”

“Junior,” Daria says, “it’s you and Breck.”

Breck. I hate that guy.

My high school tormentor, stupid dumb jock, jock leader, and when I am honest with myself, my jack off fantasy. Asshole.

“11…10…9…”

My hand is empty and I’ve still got room for a few more. Tears swim before my eyes but I grab more gelatin, corn syrup cubes.

“For god’s sakes, Junior,” Daria says, worry in her voice.

Choking.

Daria and I discussed the risk beforehand. The fair board hired two EMTs who stand nearby, ready to perform the Heimlich if necessary. Perfectly safe. I’ve witnessed this stupid Founders Day contest other years, but only this year was it really worth it to win.

One more. One more. One more!

“…6…5…4…”

At last, the sound I’d been craving, the sweet melody swam into my ears, the sound of Breck barfing. It almost sounds like a laugh, though it sputters to a wet finale punctuated by a patter of gooey cornstarch-thickened drool on pavement. I’m not taking any chances and continue to stuff one more, just one more into my exploded cheeks and Daria grabs my arm, halting the latest marshmallow as I crush it into submission in preparation for its new home.

“…2…1….”

The crowd chants.

“Stop, Junior,” Daria begs, “just stop.”

Howling. Screaming.

The panel of judges insist I empty my mouth into the metal counting bowl, poring over the semi-digested globs, poking them with bamboo grilling skewers rather than touching them directly. I already know what they will find in that bowl. Victory.

When they announce me as the winner, I throw my arms over my head, and the crowd brays in ecstasy.

“A new town record,” one of the announcers cries out with glee.

Breck sits on his bench, scowling at the whole affair as if he’s suddenly ashamed to be associated with all of us. He’s still got his almost mono-brow, his fat pouty lips with the cherriest sliver of red visible on the bottom one.

I jog over to him, good sport that I am, and hold my hand up for a high five. The audience in bleachers watches for his good sportsmanship so he is forced to stand and slap my hand.

I lean in and say, “What time should I pick you up Saturday night? Six?”

Breck glares at me, helpless and furious, and doesn’t deign to answer.

The top judge announces my name and the crowd screams again. I pump my fists in the air and Daria, the danger now over, just shakes her head. She’s been eyeballing a new insulated carafe model for quite some time.

When the screams are at their loudest, I turn to Breck, the loser of our bet, and yell at him, “It’s good to know how much you can fit in your mouth.”

His eyebrows shoot up in alarm.

“And wear something sexy,” I say, leaving his side to join the mayor, who awaits with my trophy.

Hi there. Remember me?

*hangs head in shame*

Sorry about the long silence on my blog. I have some great stories to share and will get back to serious blogging in the next few weeks. I’ve been a little busy. I’m working on three books coming out within the next eight months or so (yes, THREE) and so I’ve spent all my time writing, writing, writing. I will have more details on the books as their entrance to reality draws near. Until they’re published, they’re merely figments of my imagination.

The most irritating part of ignoring the blog for two months is that I actually *have* been doing a spot of writing, blogging for others. So it’s not like I haven’t been blogging…just not blogging here. Below are nine (yes, NINE) guest blogs I’ve created in the past two months. I’m not sure why I’m screaming numbers at you right now. I guess I’m trying to impress you with their bigness.

Below are some of my guesty blogs:

1) On 2 Boys In Love, I wrote a piece regarding the power of young love, which I named (predictably enough) The Power of Young Love. I enjoy following Matty and Brad’s adventures and while they call themselves boys, they are in fact, men. They are young men in love and share the challenges of being young men in love. It’s a good blog and I was (get this) their very FIRST guest blogger, like, ever. Ever. Wow…how cool is that? I love these guys. The Power of Young Love

2) Interested to learn more about what Mr. Vin Vanbly has been doing with himself? I did a really fun character interview with Love Affair with an e-Reader. They offered me the chance to conduct an interview with my narrator, Vin Vanbly. Boy…that was odd. Vin Vanbly Interview

3) For the more musically inclined, I stopped by Mama Kitty’s and wrote about music that greatly influenced the writing of King Mai. I’m so glad someone asked about the music – music is always so important to me and I always listen to the same songs over and over trying to crack the scenes I’m about to write.

4) I wrote for the lovelies at Babes in Boyland a while back, tackling the question that sometimes comes up when people ask me about my books:  are these leading to a magic world with unicorns and spells, and possibly a flying game on broomsticks. Hmmmmm. Well, I discussed that in this guest post:  Is It Magic?

5) I have guest blogged for Thorny before and I was happy to do so again. He made a decision not to attend a Pride Parade and I was a little surprised about his decision. Not one to be shy for having an opinion about a topic that’s none of my business, I approached him and asked if I could blog on his site. He said, ‘sure!’ So I did. Thorny’s guest blog: Authentic Me

6) Now, I am not usually one to crawl into bed with a total stranger, but I did. Lee Brazil‘s interview style is awesome. She invites authors into her bed and asks them to paint her a picture: what we’re wearing, our late-night snacks, the books we’re reading. Quite fun. If you want to imagine Lee and I in bed together (and who doesn’t?), check out In Bed With Edmond Manning.

7) I get a lot of flack for King Mai and King Perry not really being true romances. Well, I think they are. I argue they are. I gently make my case here on Chicks&Dicks awesome website where I discuss:  Could This Be Love?

8) At Coffee and Porn in the Morning they asked me if I would ever go into space. Hells, no. Plus, having seen Gravity over the weekend, let me second that ‘hells no’ with HELLS, NO. But it’s a fun interview.  Interview on Coffee and Porn

9) Like your interviews short? Sid Love‘s hilarious approach is to ask for one-word answers (or incredibly brief answers to her twenty questions. A fast, fun read. 20 Questions with Edmond Manning

Whew!

As you can see, I’ve been doing more than watching reruns of The Good Wife (though, um, yes, I did watch a number of those over the summer).

I hope to get back to blogging in a more regular pace once I come back from the awesome Gay Romance Literature (GayRom Lit or GRL) conference next week. In the meantime, a few of these guest blog posts ought to suffice.

During last week’s release of King Mai I had quite a bit of fun blogging about the book and back story. In fact, I shared some stories about the nature of The Lost and Founds, where this series is headed, etc. In case you missed anything…here’s the good stuff.

On Joyfully Jay, I blogged about the structure of the first six books, why I’m writing them in such an odd fashion, and reassured folks that despite Vin’s current struggles, good things are coming his way.

http://joyfullyjay.com/2013/07/guest-post-and-giveaway-king-mai-by-edmond-manning.html.

On The Novel Approach, I blogged about the origins of the backstory to The Lost and Founds. The blog’s owner, Lisa, had asked me via email ‘where did the idea to all this come from?’ While there are multiple answers to that simple question, I picked one dimension, the historical and mythological roots, and answered that on her blog.

http://thenovelapproachreviews.com/2013/07/15/the-lost-and-the-founds-the-origins-by-edmond-manning/

Curious about the dedication inside the first few pages of King Mai? Well…satisfy your curiosity on the ManKind Project Journal. I ‘splained why that particular dedication and what it means to me. I told the story of my friend Joe, who early in our friendship told me one night, “I have a real problem with gay men.”

http://mankindprojectjournal.org/2013/07/to-all-my-mkp-brothers-especially-the-straight-ones/

Cole Riann, a lovely friend I met through King Perry, invited me to blog on his Armchair Reader. I wrote a piece about men opening their hearts – why it’s so hard for men to do so, and why sometimes we need ‘extra encouragement’ (trickery?) to get us to do a thing we want to do anyway but also terrifies us. A few folks who read it said that this helped them understand Vin’s random manipulations…

http://coleriann.com/2013/07/19/opening-a-mans-heart-a-guest-post-by-edmond-manning-giveaway/

Ooo – in case you missed my dramatic return to YouTube…here’s why King Mai would make a good book club book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OeN2xAMA1Q

Finally, if you would like to show up on goodreads and chat with me, guess what? You can haz!

I’m hanging out on Goodreads tomorrow, July 27th, from 1pm – 5pm CENTRAL STANDARD TIME. You follow this link, show up, and start asking questions. I’ll try to give some answers that didn’t come out in any of the blogs. Well, you know, without giving *too* much away about upcoming book secrets…

https://www.goodreads.com/event/show/897970-meet-the-author-edmond-manning

Thanks for reading!

My older sister, Andrea, likes numbers.

She prefers prime numbers, so the best birthdays are those years when your age is not divisible by any other number except 1 x itself. She enjoys books about physics, reads articles about string theory, and she often sends me links to quantum theories, anomalies found in the galaxy and beyond. Oddly, she’s not into science fiction. Time and space are fascinating enough, making embellishment unnecessary.

Which is not to say she isn’t creative. Or inventive. Years ago when I was visiting my family in Illinois, she explained Moon Recession Birthdays and I foolishly believed for a few seconds this was a real thing.

Andrea explained how the moon retreats from the earth by 3.8 centimeters each year (for those of us who slept through the entire world converting to metric, that’s roughly 1.5 inches per year). If you, like me, have grown rather fond of that chunk of galactic dust and rock in the sky, this news is alarming. Of course, over your lifetime you won’t be able to notice the difference, but Andrea felt we ought to celebrate the moon’s proximity by honoring the birthday on which your height = the distance the moon has retreated from the earth.

When she finished explaining, she excitedly told me, “Your Moon Recession Birthday is the year you’re a living yardstick for how far the moon has receded.”

We were eating dinner at our parents’ home, so I turned to my other siblings who had already heard Andrea’s calculations.

Matt said, “Mine is coming up when I turn 47.”

My younger sister Eileen pouted. “I missed mine already. It was last year.”

I am 5′ 9″ and that means a total of 69 inches. How many years would it take for the moon to retreat by 69 inches? Forty-six years. This year, less than two weeks away, is my Moon Recession Birthday.

On a business trip years later, I explained the concept to some California coworkers. We were celebrating happy hour, cheers-ing each other’s drinks and laughing over the miniscule stories of our lives. I’m not sure how the Moon Recession Birthday topic came up. I mean, only I could have introduced it (since it’s not really a thing outside our family) but at the time it seemed relevant to our conversations.

Alcohol makes many stories seem relevant.

My coworkers listened in awe and the silence that followed was either deep admiration for my sister’s ingenuity or deep fear that they were sharing drinks with a psychopath. Hard to tell. Three work days later I decided they must have felt deep admiration because these California coworkers built a website called the Moon Recession Birthday Calculator and sent me the link. You type in your height, click Submit, and wallah:  your Moon Recession Birthday.

Of course, I sent the link to everyone in the family, promising our lives would be easier now that we could track this important milestone birthday. This past June, while celebrating Mom’s birthday/Father’s Day at Olive Garden, Andrea hinted over breadsticks, “I think someone‘s having a Moon Recession Birthday this year…”

She’s right.

Happy Moon Recession Birthday to me.

I’m not sure to celebrate.

It’s confusing for two reasons. First, this is a completely made up thing, so there really aren’t any rules. Do I instruct friends to buy me moon-related gifts? Do I have to stare at the moon until dawn? I can only assume a round cake, right? Secondly, big birthdays freak me out, the significant changeovers. I was never irritated by turning thirty or forty, but the year after those:  thirty-one and forty-one. Those were the years that meant ‘you’re really in this decade now.’ (Of course, Andrea would argue thirty-one and forty-one were some excellent Prime Number Years.)

I’m not sure how to spend the significant ones. I guess every birthday is significant, the older I get.

George Orwell said, “At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.” Fifty seems like a significant birthday to me for this quote alone. I wonder about the face I’ll wear on that day. Wrinkled, sure. How will I feel about that man? Will he still love the world and feel its small wonders or will discouragement and disillusion scratch up my face into something unrecognizable, a face beat down by the world? Fifty isn’t that far away. Maybe who I am now is who I’ll be then.

Aging scares me. I’m worried I’m not strong enough to handle the things like degenerating cartlidge in the knees or the disappointments of never being President of the United States. Not that I ever wanted that, but the older I get, the more options close down. Never going to be a dancer. Never going to visit the Amazon rainforests. Never going to own an ostrich farm. It’s not that I wanted these things in life, but each birthday reminds me ‘this is your life, the one you’ve carved out.’

I like my life. I could book at trip to the Amazon tomorrow, but fuck that. There are some big fucking snakes down there. But growing older means receding a little from youthful possibilities, the years where anything could happen. My youth is receding, just like the moon. I am a living yardstick to the chubby tot I once was.

Once when I was a seven or eight, mom yelled at me from the top of the stairs and I was so enraged I stormed out the front door, trotted down the front steps just like a big boy and marched away from the house. I’d never stormed out like that before. I had no idea where I was headed. The screen door banged close behind me and Andrea immediately fell into a half-step behind me, begging to know what was happening. Where was I going? When would I return? Even at that age I recognized the worry in her voice.

“Are you running away?” she asked.

This question sliced through my anger and gave me pause. I hadn’t really considered running away, but I was sure headed somewhere. But where? Did I really want to run away? I didn’t even pack any sandwiches. I paused for these considerations and my anger dialed down.

Andrea walked next to me, little jogging steps to keep up with my furious march, and she promised me, promised if I didn’t run away, she would play Monopoly with me that night. But please, come home. Come home.

I turned around.

Came home.

It’s not easy to find people willing to play Monopoly.

Though I did not know my true intentions, nevertheless, I labeled that experience When Andrea Stopped Me From Running Away.

A few years later, Andrea headed off to Girl Scout camp for a week and I cried; I bawled my eyes out thinking of her not being in the house for a week. The night she packed her camping gear, I thought I was a brave little toaster, hiding my feelings, but looking back, my weeping trips to the bathroom for more Kleenix were more of a giveaway than I thought. She came into the bedroom I shared with my younger brother and in the darkness she said, “It’s okay. It’s only a week. You’ll be okay.”

She and I are not the same people back on the day When Andrea Stopped Me From Running Away. We’re not close. I grieve that, but I accept it. We see the world differently and some of those differences create division. But she’s always my big sister and when I think of running away from her, I remember that she kept her promise. We played Monopoly.

So I will celebrate my Moon Recession Birthday the best I can, waving goodbye to the retreating moon and my receding youth. I will do the best to remember who I was, who we both were, back when I thought I couldn’t live without her for one week. We may have grown apart, but we still make each other giggle. We challenge each other to timed sudoku contests. After mom cooks family dinner, we still fight over who has to wash dishes.

A few years ago, my friend Michael came to my house just as I grabbed the day’s mail. I had received a package. No return address. We opened it and inside found a small round cake, frosted completely yellow, a blazing sun of a cake. Also included in the box were nine intricately decorated cookies (bubble-wrapped very carefully), each decorated cookie very different from the others. One was covered with blue and green sprinkles, arranged in arbitrary shapes. Another cookie was cream-colored with a red circle in its lower left side. One cookie sported three candy stripes of orange jimmies, carefully laid out by piece by piece.

Michael said, “I can’t see the pattern. What are these supposed to be?”

“Planets,” I said, and I knew it was true. “That one is planet earth and that one is Jupiter with its red eye. This one, the red planet, is Mars. The one with stripes are supposed to be rings around Saturn.”

We used Google Images to confirm the identities of Uranus, Mercury, and Neptune. Michael was amazed at the intense fidelity between the cookie colors and the visual representations of those planets.

“This would have taken hours,” he said, amazed. “Who would do this?”

I knew as soon as I saw the blazing sun cake. I said, “My big sister.”

I’m excited to announce that King Mai is (at last) available through amazon.com. If you’re looking for an .epub version, you can purchase King Mai at All Romance Ebooks. I am still working on the paperback version and will post to this page when it’s ready for consumption.

I’ve also been delighted to have several great reviews of King Mai already!

Joyfully Jay reviewed King Mai and really touched my heart with her kind words and insights. As incentive to go read the review, you can sign up for a drawing giving away a free copy of King Mai.

Lisa from A Novel Approach wrote a gorgeous review, inventing all kind of awesome names for narrator Vin Vanbly. Heh. Another free giveaway! Go check it out!

In the next few days, I’ll post more reviews, links, and share with you some of the blogs I wrote which reveal secrets of the entire series, The Lost and Founds.

The events in this novel take place in 1996

Chapter 1

Ladies and gentlemen, the BBC proudly presents another episode of Vin Vanbly, Farm Spy. Today, we follow the case—nah, no time. Only ten minutes until we begin his King Weekend.

From my hiding spot in the corn, I watch Mai Kearns on his front porch, watching his watch. Watch. Watch, watch. I like the word watch. Kearns wears a solid yellow T-shirt I have not seen before, which means either it’s new or one of his good tees. Yellow looks sexy against his hazelnut skin. I wonder if he realizes that color is perfect on him or if it’s a happy accident. He must know. I’ve been aching to kiss his dark copper neck, to glide my pale fingers down those strong arms, slightly less sunburned than his neck. I want to caress his chest, and to compare his farmer tan to what’s under his shirt. And, of course, his ass. I bet it’s a goldeny-brown, a tender shade that flushes when you kiss it, worship its rippling goose bumps.

His eyes… I can’t wait to see those hard, dark eyes staring right into me. Today I will see his eyes up close, no longer through binoculars.

Over the yellow tee, he’s wearing a white linen shirt, unbuttoned, the one he wore last Sunday when they ate dinner on the backyard picnic table. I almost strolled out of their cornfield to ask for a steak. Hard yellow corn, baked potatoes, fat red and gold tomatoes in a bowl, and his mom made a pie. I wish I knew what kind of pie. I’ll ask him. Tried to catch a whiff, but from my hiding spot, I could only smell dirt and corn.

His flat tummy peeks out as he stretches his arms behind his head. He looks at his watch again. I love his tummy. Slender guys have cute bellies. Or whatever you call his lack of belly.

God, I want to have sex with him.

He glances at his watch again and jerks his arm away. He’s already pissed and I’m not even late. I remained so adamant about beginning exactly at 6:00 p.m. that my impending tardiness will surely burst a vein in his neck.

He leans over the wooden porch’s railing, staring down the narrow, country road leading to his parents’ farm. Still no sight of me. He clunks his worn cowboy boots down the front steps and with clipped strides crosses the house’s front, the only side scraped and primed, ready for its repainting. Standing in the yard, he peers beyond the driveway but he can’t see far, not with cornstalks seven, eight feet high everywhere around us.

Okay, time for the final alignment test.

I step backwards, deeper into the field, and tighten my grip on the cornstalk in my right hand. Pressing my foot against the stalk, I wait until he’s looking away and with my boot, I punch it.

Crack.

Mai’s head snaps straight toward this field. He knows what he heard.

Yup, he loves the corn.

After staring in my direction and hearing northing further, Mai storms back to the porch and flops hard into an Adirondack, his morning coffee chair, lifts his feet to the railing, and then scrapes his boot undersides across a banister spoke. His mom’s not going to like that—Kearns, you know better. But the man can’t stand to be doing nothing, and this latest distraction betrays his impatience.

5:55 p.m.

Fuck it. I can’t wait until 6:00 p.m. I want our time together to start right now, this very second. I stride from the field into the neighboring grass and wait for him to notice me. He’s, what, fifty yards away? Sixty? Not close enough to distinguish eye color or read expressions accurately, but close enough to notice there’s a person now standing here.

Mai stands again and after flicking a few dirt chunks off the railing, catches me in his peripheral vision. He turns to look at me for a moment, peers in my direction, and jumps back a foot.

“Hey, bubba,” he yells. “That’s our corn.”

I love it. That’s what he calls the men in DeKalb. He once emailed me the word meant nothing more than a playful swipe at the locals. He lied. It’s more than a gentle snub. He hates the town bubbas, the redneck high schoolers who taunted him, a hurt exacerbated because he once loved a local bubba. It’s exhausting to hate what you love and love what you hate.

He stares at me, then glances down the road.

I cock my head, but say nothing.

Across the front yard, driveway, and expanse of grass crushed flat and ripped open by tractor wheels, he cups his hands and yells, “You…are you Vin Vanbly?”

I nod.

He yells, “C’mere.”

I shake my head in refusal, exaggerating the motion so he can see it clearly.

I smile, remembering the many months it took us to get here.

When we first started emailing six months ago in March, Mai argued the sheer impossibility of so many kings, arguing the nightmare bureaucratic and legal consequences. He next launched real-world crime statistics like missiles, demanding explanations for how any utopia could remain untouched by humanity’s worst. In another email, he insisted that with many countries barely acknowledging women’s rights, so how could they recognize each woman as the one true queen? Despite his goading questions, Kearns didn’t really want answers.

He wanted to believe.

He waits a minute, staring at me hard. “Hey, could you come here for a moment? I need to talk to you.”

I shake my head again. With my right hand, I motion for him to come.

Fuck talking. I already know he wants to back out. “Something important came up.” That’s about half the excuses I get. Also popular lately is “I only showed up to explain why I refuse go.” Blah, blah, fucking blah.

When I invite men on my King Weekend, they never know what to expect, only that they must submit to my every demand all weekend. When Friday evening arrives, they realize my promise to help them “remember the man they were always meant to be” seems awfully vague weighed against a full weekend of total submission and obedience. I’m sure they worry it’s all dungeon basements and restraints in metal chains but lucky for them, I’m not that kind of guy. I guess I’m not surprised men want to back out at the last minute. I probably would too.

Mai tilts his head and skews his face into what might be a frown. Can’t tell. But I dig the cowboy angle of his body, hands on his hips, fighting me for control over this single moment in time. I wish I had a camera.

Almost the entire Kearns’ farm lies behind him. The dilapidated red and white barns don’t need new paint; they need new wood to go under the paint, and then new paint. The barn they use for storing tractors and hay shows its ribs in a few places, and a few massive corrugated tin sheets stretch themselves across squares of missing roof, protecting its modesty. I can’t imagine it’s effective in winter. The animal barn appears in better shape. They take good care of the cows. It’s clean inside—well, as clean as you can get with forty-three shitting cows. I’m not a farmer but from my night-time lurking around the property, I could identify dozens of necessary improvements once money is found.

No, Vin, don’t think about that. Don’t think about the farm.

He saunters across the yard, extra-casual, attempting to disguise his irritation. Damn he’s hot, even when he’s angry. Maybe especially when he’s angry. I get the appeal of angry men. They carry a clenched power in their eyes and fists, threatening immediate, immoderate action. While I do not want the anger, I love the accompanying raw testosterone. Bring it on, bubba.

After he storms across the white-stoned driveway, he skirts the scything machine, whatever that thing is, careful not to step on the border of impatiens I’ve seen his mom water and weed. Clearly, this rusted thing is beyond salvage. The rubber wheels are years flat, the blades dull and useless. I want to believe the surrounding pink and white flowers communicate his mother’s Midwestern sensibility regarding beauty: if this piece of crap stays in our yard let’s make it look like we intended it. I have to remember to ask him where this machine came from. I have a theory.

When he reaches the grass twenty feet from me, I start backing into the corn.

He stops and puts his hands on his hips. “Yes, yes, just like Field of Dreams. It’s been done, Vin.”

I leap back a few more feet until I’m sure I’m hidden, then turn and dash down the row. People associate cornfields with either Field of Dreams or Children of the Corn. That’s a pretty fair dichotomy: Found Kings’ interpretation, Lost Kings’ interpretation.

For a split second, I question my decision to review the full history of the kingdom where every man is the one true king, every woman the one true queen. Depending on how we move, I may recap the highlights. Okay, stop questioning the weekend flow. I can’t change much now. And no more second guessing. I must stay in the moment or my face will betray clues of what’s to come. Besides, Mai practically memorized the Lost and Founds backstory on my AOL home page just so he could better argue with me.

Get present. Stay present. No more second guessing.

From a distance, I hear him say loudly, “Hey, c’mon. I need to talk to you. What are you doing?”

When I do not answer, he says, “Don’t you guys have corn in Minnesota? Couldn’t you do this at home?”

I remain silent as a gentle breeze ripples through the field and I listen to the fat, broad corn sheaths slap each other across the face, like thousands of rugged drag queens.

Mai is quiet. I am quiet.

It’s not spooky if you’re a farmer, the quiet of the earth.

In the past three weeks, I’ve observed many flavors of quiet while skulking around the Kearns’ farm. Mai drinks his morning coffee in silence, boots perched on the chipped railing until his mom yells from the kitchen. There’s corn-slapping silence, which is not silent at all, but an army of invisible accountants rustling papers. Mai and his father work side by side in silence at times. They talk, they joke, they even argue loud, but in their silence I can hear them share the same love for what they do. Cricket-chirping silence, the silence of dirt, cow silence, and the exhausted quiet of an August day, a day spent milking, pounding, feeding, culling, sharpening, smashing, driving, hauling, milking again, then suddenly guzzling icy water from a sweaty glass at sunset. All that exertion and nobody gets off? I couldn’t handle being a farmer.

Mai enters the cornfield. “Vin? C’mon.”

Last week from this field, I witnessed a more ominous quiet right before evening milking, as both Kearns and his father raced toward the barns from opposite fields. I peered around the sky wondering how they knew, as the storm seemed distant to me, but in a screaming cloud of dust, Kearns jumped out of his pickup and yelled to his father, “I’ll take scratch.”

Didn’t know what that code meant, but they got most of the cows inside before the first serious lightning snaked down and pierced the earth’s skin in viper silence. A hair-raising peal of thunder rent the air and made me drop to my knees, wincing. They stayed in the barn and I remained in their cornfield, alternating between delight in the storm’s viciousness and cowering in absolute terror.

In a tenor close to—but not quite—yelling, he says “Yo, Vin. Chasing through cornfields isn’t as much fun when you’re a farmer. It’s like being at the office.”

Why would he say that? Neither one of us works an office job. He knows that.

“C’mon, man, I need to talk to you.”

I try to imagine the dark shadow across his face as he surrenders and storms down the row where I disappeared. But I already have moved seven or eight rows over and quietly, I think. I’ve been practicing my own silence, racing through cornfields for three weeks. I lost weight, which is good. I’m down to 205, 210.

Okay, fine: 215.

Once I spy his boots deep in our field I shout, “Experts predict family farm ownership will fall by 44% over the next six years, leaving farming in the hands of seven major corporations.”

I take off running down my current row, hunched over at the waist to avoid protruding ears, navigating each stalk with hard-won expertise. I pass him, more than a dozen rows over, and unless he specifically looks for feet, he can’t see beyond three or four rows at a time. I’m confident he does not know my location until I yell my next statistic.

“By the year 2011, the farm crisis will collapse the national food supply chain, rendering millions of Americans starving to death in their own homes.”

I yell over my head, straight up, making my voice harder to trace. I’m already on the move so he can’t make out my exact location. I cross several rows over, race back the opposite way, screaming statistics he gave me regarding pesticides and their long term impact, their decay rates, and in my best imitation of a crow’s hoarse voice, shouting, “Y2K! Y2K!”

Until Mai and his doomsday numbers, I had never even heard of Y2K. Apparently, it’s going to kill us all. Kearns spewed statistics during every email conversation in our early exchanges, and when we chatted live on AOL, he threw numbers at me frequently as well. And here I assumed I read a lot. He mostly reads articles as opposed to books. He hides behind numbers, percentage points, and grim predictions for the future. He thinks they will protect him so that when his heart next breaks he can cross his arms and say, “Told you.”

Mai drops to his knees, peering through the stalks to search for my legs. Good idea, Kearns, but too late—you’re dealing with a cheater. I already left the cornfield and now lie face down on the western edge in the grass, covering my blond skull using the broken stalk and its ears. I can be difficult to spot when I choose.

He stands and yells, “Quit fucking around, okay?”

I can only see his legs, spread-eagle, standing rigid right near the field’s center.

C’mon, Mai, listen. That silence rippling through the corn is your kingship, whispering your true name.

Careful, Vin. Don’t get cocky. Know your place. Though I am in boss mode, I must not forget who is the servant and who is the master. I serve the Found Ones this weekend and though he has not yet crossed over, Mai Kearns is my one true king.

After a moment, he takes off. I recognize his quick stride—he’s fucking pissed. Didn’t take much.

He’s so ready.