The Critical List

by Wenke, John;

Tiffany: “I met with Judge Hathorne. Basically, he wants to make an example of you. He said, ‘Remember Lorena Bobbitt? Just because she got off doesn’t mean it’s open season on the male member.’”

  [Dawn laughs and picks up a piece of chocolate.]

  Dawn: “Does he know we have him on videotape? Going into the motel room with that seventeen-year-old male prostitute? Tell him the blind wasn’t all the way down.”

  Tiffany: “Don’t worry. I was giving him a chance to be a nice boy about it. Tomorrow, I’ll get tough. I’ve already given Eddie Ranchero the money. When I put Hathorne on the line, Eddie will be ready to sing.”

  The fun is just beginning. Next week, Eddie Ranchero will mysteriously disappear. It will take another month of shows for the case to be dismissed. Delilah Faye’s performance as Tiffany Morganchild is a big hit, though there isn’t much to say about Harriet Dombrowski, except we are becoming friends. We tried kissing once, but it didn’t go anywhere. Safe sex never became an issue. On other fronts, Nate is drinking more and writing a string of sestinas. I worry about him. Harry Wilson’s Iceman had a very successful run. Last week, he went back to New York—to get away from the fights, he said.

  I may have to give up and admit my story has no ending. Things keep happening. For one thing, I’ve been having a lot of odd dreams. A few nights ago, a forest gathered into the sky and then four houses slid down a canyon. On the beach, I watched and listened while strangers played chess and argued in a foreign language. Early this morning, I woke up from one of the strangest. I was jogging midmorning on the quake-ravaged Santa Monica Freeway. At my side was a shrunken man in a motorized wheelchair. He had the face of my father. Wrapped in a baggy gray sweat suit, he was laughing hard. His head seemed as large as a watermelon. It tilted toward me, his mouth churning, chuckling, and guffawing. Through all the laughter, he was speaking. I can’t remember the words, but he was talking and laughing, and I was listening, all serious, trying to hear what he was saying, running to keep up, and watching the highway for large holes. I was worried we were going to fall through.

  I woke up then and couldn’t get back to sleep. It was 5:33. I lay there, waiting for the day, wondering why the clock blinked so slowly, why nothing moved. I found myself not sleeping or dreaming but drifting, wondering about the laughing man with my father’s face, and imagining a whole freeway full of laughing cripples, a parade of the physically challenged, complete with floats and wheeling musicians. There would be a section for rolling hospital beds and racing gurneys, a street ballet with no end in sight. The parade would go on and on, a stream of human joy. There would be no tripping, fainting, or dying. No flesh failures. Everyone would be out for the day. There would be no one hanging by a thread, not a single name on the critical list.

  John Stenwick yells, “Cut.”

  The lighting’s not right. Two technicians scramble to adjust the standing floods. We’ll need another take. No one minds. This is business. It occurs to me to slip out and call Nate Newell and tell him about my latest dream. I will have to assure him that I did not see my father as a ghost, that it was only a dream. But it will be my job to get Nate laughing. He needs to do more laughing, but I will wait until after the last take, wait for Dawn and Tiffany to finish conspiring beneath corrected lighting. The actors are moving into place. For a little while, I’ll sit still, shut my eyes, and watch the beds roll, the gurneys dance, and the wheelchairs glide. Along the shattered expressway, the infirm will laugh, and the silent music will play. It’s all about to happen. Now, finis.

  Acknowledgements

  The stories in this collection first appeared in the following publications:

  “Choke Hold” Delmarva Quarterly

  “Closets” North Atlantic Review

  “House Arrest” Cimarron Review

  “Mulekick” The Chariton Review

  “Z-Man and the Christmas Tree” The Chariton Review

  “A Good Samaritan Will Stop” The Montreal Review

  “The Jolly Season” Chesapeake East

  “The Decomposing Log” Words of Wisdom

  “Young Mr. Moyen” Blue Lake Review

  “Baby” Timber Creek Review

  “Anchorite” RiverSedge

  “The Critical List” Writers’ Forum