wa7 draft 2

I’ve been working for the NYPD for ten years, ever since I was a green twenty five year old.  I’ve been a plainclothesman seven years, and I even worked a stint as a homicide detective, so I’ve seen some pretty strange things.  But there are things that you never expect to see, and even when they’re happening you can’t believe it.

I met Tim McSullen the first day on the job.  He was the ruddy, reclusive cop by the soda machine, addicted to Coca Cola like no other.  It was impressive how many of those he’d finish during a beat.  I’ve seen him shoot a guy while downing a can.  My buddy, Al, and I used to say that if there was one cop who was gonna lose it and probably shoot one of his coworkers, it was McSullen.

On Friday, the 23rd of November, ‘07, there was a big time dealer that got busted and a bunch of us were called in to help out.  We were pretty preoccupied with all the questioning and filing and trying to get other guys’ names.  So it wasn’t much of a surprise that nobody much noticed the strange creature that McSullen found in the dealer’s apartment and smuggled into his cruiser.  Nobody noticed then, but it’s on the security cameras.

About two days later someone noticed that McSullen was missing.  He hadn’t shown up for work, and when we called his cell he didn’t pick up.  This is the guy who worked without more than five sick days for the last fifteen years.  We figured something was up, so my buddy Al and I went over to his apartment on the lower West side.  Ratty place, graffiti on the stairwell, the whole number, and about a gazillion crumpled Cola cans in the recycling bin by the curb.  Taking this as confirmation of our coworkers place of habitation, we entered the building and ascended the four flights of stairs to the door titled McSullen.  Knocked twice, no answer.  Knocked again, nothing.  Now Al starts freaking out, says he’s worried McSullen’s lying inside dead.  Mostly Al was acting crazy because he has low blood sugar and he skipped lunch.  Always a bad situation for a guy with a major weapon on his belt.  So Al goes and busts down the door.  

We go inside and find McSullen in there all right.  And he’s got an elf with him.  Maybe not an elf, more like a goblin.  Real big jowls, about three feet, green eyes, crazy little thing.  McSullen instantly throws a blanket over the thing and tries to act real nonchalant, so we say, Hey, McSullen, why is there a mythical creature under the blanket.  Turns out this is some crazy goblin guy that the dealer bred and McSullen has high hopes to breed it and sell the new species.  Then the thing snarls and rips through the blanket and suddenly we see these metal claws.  I draw my gun and it leaps at me, tearing off my left arm with its steel teeth.  It sprints past me out of the apartment, and McSullen runs after it.  Al and I chase them out to the street and raise our guns to fire, expecting McSullen to do the same.  Then the crazy guy does what I’d always predicted: he points his gun at us and is about to fire...When the goblin shrinks into the sidewalk, turning into a flowery weed between two old tires.  

wa 7 draft 1

I’ve been working for the NYPD for ten years, ever since I was a green twenty five year old.  I’ve been a plainclothesman seven years, and I even worked a stint as a homicide detective, so I’ve seen some pretty strange things.  But there are things that you just never imagine you’d come across in a million years and even when they’re happening you can’t believe it.

I met Tim McSullen the first day on the job.  He was the ruddy, reclusive cop by the soda machine, addicted to Coca Cola like no other.  It was impressive how many of those he’d finish during a beat.  I’ve seen him shoot a guy while downing a can.  My buddy, Al, and I used to say that if there was one cop who was gonna lose it and probably shoot one of his coworkers, it was McSullen.

On Friday, the 23rd of November, ‘07, there was a big time dealer that got busted and a bunch of us were called in to help out.  We were pretty preoccupied with all the questioning and filing and trying to get other guys’ names.  So it wasn’t much of a surprise that nobody much noticed the strange creature that McSullen found in the dealers apartment and smuggled into his cruiser.  Nobody noticed then, but it’s on the security cameras.

About two days later someone noticed that McSullen was missing.  He hadn’t shown up for work, and when we called his cell he didn’t pick up.  This is the guy who worked without more than five sick days for the last fifteen years.  We figured something was up, so my buddy Al and I went over to his apartment on the lower West side.  Ratty place, graffiti on the stairwell, the whole number, and about a gazillion crumpled Cola cans in the recycling bin by the curb.  Taking this as confirmation of our coworkers place of habitation, we entered the building and ascended the four flights of stairs to the door titled McSullen.  Knocked twice, no answer.  Knocked again, nothing.  Now Al starts freaking out, says he’s worried McSullen’s lying inside dead.  Mostly Al was acting crazy because he has low blood sugar and he skipped lunch.  Always a bad situation for a guy with a major weapon on his belt.  So Al goes and busts down the door.  

We go inside and find McSullen in there all right.  And he’s got an elf with him.  Maybe not an elf, more like a goblin.  Real big jowls, about three feet, green eyes, crazy little thing.  McSullen instantly throws a blanket over the thing and tries to act real nonchalant, so we say, Hey, McSullen, why is there a mythical creature under the blanket.  Turns out this is some crazy goblin guy that the dealer bred and McSullen has high hopes to breed it and sell the new species.  Then the thing snarls and rips through the blanket and suddenly we see these metal claws.  I draw my gun and it leaps at me, tearing off my left arm with its steel teeth.  It sprints past me out of the apartment, and McSullen runs after it.  Al and I chase them out to the street and raise our guns to fire, expecting McSullen to do the same.  Then the crazy guy does what I’d always predicted: he points his gun at us and is about to fire...When the goblin shrinks into the sidewalk, turning into a flowery weed between two old tires.  

wedding draft 3

Liam and I were eating dinner at our favorite dumpling shop when he proposed.  The streets were frosted with sparkly ice.  The wind was slippery and had jewel drop flakes that melted on smells of spicy pork and slurpy tamari sesame noodles.  The walls were red and the tablecloth was black paper.  I looked at Liam’s frosty cheeks and dew coated eyelashes.  I said I’d have to think about it for a couple days.  Five minutes later I said yes.

I gleamed promisingly as he unlatched the lid of my velvet case.  He sucked in his breath, admiring my golden curves and the tantalizing sparkle of happily ever after that I stood for.  The saleslady, Estella, who always secretly changed from her heels into pink crocs as soon as her boss left, snapped the lid of my box closed and rang me up. 

I found a silk turban in a thrift shop and I laced it with glitter and silk flowers to wrap around my hair for the ceremony.  Our friend, Brett, lent Liam a kimono that his girlfriend had bought him.  They’d split up and he didn’t want it anymore.  We went to the nearest mall and took sloppy photobooth pictures and glued halos of fairy dust and calligraphied the details around our laughing faces and sent them off as wedding invitations.  

The toothbrush was stiff bristled and plastic pink.  It spoke to me.  Iwent to the drugstore on the corner but the saleslady wearing yellow crocs said toothbrushes were nonreturnable and smirked.  The snow was coming down as through a sifter and I went home and made a rose tinted cake.  The toothbrush talked to me while I worked.    

I showed it to Liam when he came home from his art class.  The toothbrush told us stories about its travels through the mountains in China.  It told us of its past lives.  It had been a penguin last.  It offered to grant us one wish.

April rolled around and Liam and I couldn’t decide what our wish would be. 

On April 16th I was finally removed from my drawer.  Chester, the pink ringbearer placed me in the middle of the silky pillow on which I was to wait.  It was a misty spring afternoon, and I relished the delicate scent of wet flower petals and pollen.  

Chester was a pest with a soft side for the deviled eggs that had been arranged as appetizers on the picnic tables.  He was gorging himself when a pin striped fellow wearing a beautiful emerald brooch approached him.  I leaned towards the edge of my pillow, trying to get a better view of the lovely jewel, but at the same time, Chester reached for another egg and I plummeted into a foamy cloud of yolk.  From my fluffly bed, I heard the gentleman chide the boy for not being in place yet.  The boy muttered something indignantly, but dutifully shuffled off.  The last thing I saw as I was lifted high into the air and swallowed whole was the hand which bore me.  It was cuffed in a sleeve of pink pin stripe.

It was spring and while our friends  in the backyard, I walked down the aisle to Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.  Liam waited for me in a shiny bubble at the end.  His freckle-glossed nephew, Chester, held out the ring cushion...It was empty.  

Chester shuffled and looked at the egg yolk sun.  I slipped the toothbrush out of the sash of my sunflower dress and placed it on the pillow.  We both took one end of the toothbrush and closed our eyes and wished.  The toothbrush sang and leapt into the air like a baton, raining a dolphin of wishes and magic on all of our guests.  It shimmied in the glowing air, and glided to the hand of a man in a pink pin striped suit with a glassy faceted emerald brooch.  He twirled it, and grinning crazily, slowly sunk into the ground.  A tiny winking pink flower bloomed where he had stood.